One Hudson Square to Welcome New 115,000-SF Tenant

February 11, 2010
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons user NJScott

With anemic occupancy levels still plaguing Manhattan, Horizon Media Inc.’s lease of 115,000 square feet of office space in the million-square-foot building at One Hudson Square in Midtown South is no small affair. The lease agreement with property owner Trinity Real Estate will allow the brand marketing and development agency to bring employees from its three local offices to a single location and expand its elbow room.

A 19-story structure developed in 1929, One Hudson Square sits near the intersection of Varick and Canal streets in the new Hudson Square Business Improvement District. Horizon will occupy three floors of the building once it joins the tenant roster this fall.

From the first quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter, average overall office vacancy rates in Manhattan rose from 11.9 percent to 13.1 percent; and average asking rents dropped from $66.81 per-square-foot to $53.99, according to a report by real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. Increasingly desirable rents may well continue to spur new transactions.

“Lease activity was up in the third and fourth quarters and as we’ve started this year, it seems to be continuing,” Andrew Peretz, a broker with real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, told CPE. Cushman & Wakefield represented property owner Trinity in the transaction while Newmark Knight Frank stood in for Horizon.

Other large lease agreements made since mid-2009 include the United Nations International Computing Center’s deal for 120,000 square feet at 730 Third Avenue; the FDIC’s commitment to 100,000 square feet at the Empire State Building on Fifth Avenue; and C.V. Starr & Co. Inc.’s tripling of its occupancy at 399 Park Avenue with a new lease for 141,000 square feet.

“In general, we believe the recession is over and the market has bottomed out,” Peretz said. “The first sign of a strengthening market will be seen in Midtown first, rather than Downtown, and it will not necessarily be demonstrated by higher rates but will probably be seen in the lessening of landlord concessions.”