REAL ESTATE New York
WTC Leasing Takes
A New Direction
At left: The World Trade Center redevelopment rises in Lower Manhattan. Above: Silverstein Properties promotes the forthcoming towers from a marketing studio at 7 World Trade. City aerial photo by Joe Woolhead
High-tech, media and creative firms are the new class of tenants
taking space at the 16-acre redevelopment site. But with more
than seven million square feet to go, challenges remain.
Despite headwinds from the financial services industry, rising construc- tion costs and political squabbling
from both municipal and state agencies,
leasing activity at the World Trade Center
has managed to remain on solid ground.
Over the past year, 7 World Trade Center
reached 100% occupancy, magazine publisher Condé Nast signed a landmark one-million-square-foot deal at 1 World Trade
Center and the City of New York’s Human
Resources Administration OK’ed a 586,000-
square-foot lease to consolidate and move
its administrative and executive staff to the
By Jacqueline Hlavenka
upcoming 4 World Trade Center.
Yet as tenants continue to watch their
budgets and seek more efficient space, the
trickle-down effects from the Condé deal
have not completely manifested. Rather,
they’re just starting to take shape, sources
tell Real Estate Forum.
“We thought we would get a share of the
financial services market, but we were
always driven to diversify our tenant mix
with both US and global corporations,” says
Cushman & Wakefield vice chairman Tara
Stacom, who handles leasing at the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey’s 1
World Trade. “We’ve been seeing an excep-
tionally strong prospect pool, and when
you look at it, it’s very diversified, both geo-
graphically and by industry group.”
Now at 92 stories, the $3.2-billion, 2.6-
million-square-foot 1 World Trade is 60%
leased to a wide variety of tenants. In 2009,
Chinese real estate firm Vantone became
the first signed tenant when it took 200,000
square feet, while the General Services
Administration brought the tower to half-
20 REAL ESTATE FORUM FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012
Part of the ForumLOCAL Series
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