East Midtown is once again Manhattan’s most in-demand office market.
Deals are still being done in the Hudson Yards area, Times Square, Midtown South and at the World Trade Center, but brokers say the momentum has shifted to the East 40s and 50s, which not long ago seemed to have lost their luster.
“Companies with resources are drawn to the blocks around Grand Central Terminal,” one insider said. “They like the energy that came from One Vanderbilt and the recent East Midtown rezoning. They like that the LIRR will soon be coming into the terminal. And they like the reinvestment that’s making old towers new.”
A major lease is said to be in the works for Macquarie Group at Brookfield’s 660 Fifth Avenue, the redesigned tower stripped of its former 666 “satanic” address. Other deals are also poised to happen at the unrecognizably transformed tower.
Meanwhile, sources said that Ken Griffin’s Citadel, which is on a Big Apple hiring spree, is in advanced talks with Olayan America’s 550 Madison Ave., the repositioned former Sony tower where Chubb Group recently signed on as anchor tenant.
