It’s build-or-bolt time for BXP on Madison Avenue.
The developer is itching to construct a skyscraper at 343 Madison between East forty fourth and forty fifth streets, which is presently a block-long, empty lot owned by the MTA. Nevertheless it wants an anchor tenant earlier than the hanging, 46-story, 950,000 square-foot tower — designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox — proven right here for the primary time — can rise.
BXP, beforehand generally known as Boston Properties, tapped a crack CBRE leasing crew to make it occur. The bottom-lease settlement with the MTA offers BXP an off-ramp to terminate its 99-year leasehold by July 31, 2025, if a tenant can’t be discovered.
BXP was chosen to develop the positioning in 2016. Now, after demolition of the outdated MTA headquarters and sale final 12 months of a minority stake to Oslo-based Norges Financial institution Funding Fund, the developer hopes to use demand within the red-hot Grand Central district, the place SL Inexperienced’s new One Vanderbilt leased up nearly in a single day.
CBRE’s Howard Fiddle mentioned BXP’s “state-of-the-art, highly sustainable tower” would offer a “single-seat commute” from practically in all places within the tristate area. The CBRE leasing crew additionally contains Peter Turchin, John Maher, Evan Haskell and Caroline Merck.
BXP is already constructing for the MTA a brand new above-ground entrance to Grand Central Terminal on the nook of Madison and forty fifth in what’s described as the primary section of the challenge.
Throughout a latest buyers name, BXP government vp for New York Hilary Spann cited “tightness in the Park Avenue district with very little Class-A premier workspace available” as motive for confidence within the tower, which BXP touts as a sustainability-driven, all-electric, “zero-carbon premier workplace.”
Facilities are to incorporate a double-height lounge and convention house on the forty fifth and forty sixth flooring, indoor and outside eating areas on “biophilic” terraces overlooking Midtown, and a high-end foyer lounge.
Office flooring vary from 22,000 sq. toes within the tower to 27,500 sq. toes on podium flooring.
However as a publicly traded REIT, BXP might want to maintain an in depth eye on the state of affairs. BXP president Douglas Linde informed buyers in August 2023 that rents might want to prime $200 a sq. foot to make the challenge viable, Crains reported.
Though floor lease phrases weren’t launched, an MTA Finance Committee doc from 2016 reviewed by Realty Examine referred to as for a $25 million upfront cost and floor lease to rise from $6.38 million yearly within the first 5 years of the 99-year lease to $10.3 million in years 26-30, to be adopted by resets at intervals.
These prices had been based mostly on a constructing with a floor-to-area ratio of 15 as permitted on the time. The FAR has since risen to 30 below latest rezoning, and BXP is probably going paying far more to the MTA. BXP declined to remark.
