at 1177 Sixth include
Pricewaterhouse
Coopers LLC and law
firms Dickstein Shapiro
Movin & Oshinksy and
Kramer Levin Naftalis &
Frankel.
Another sizable
transaction in the
third quarter was
more of a formality,
as shareholders of
Hilton Hotels Corp.
turned over the
Waldorf-Astoria,
Hilton New York and
two contiguous lots
at 102-108 W. 57th
St. to BH Hotels LLC,
a unit of the Blackstone Group. The late-November transfer of property, part of
Blackstone’s $26-billion takeover of
Hilton in October, was worth $1.4 billion.
The lots on West 57th Street will contain a
28-story Hilton Grand Vacations Club
timeshare.
1177 Ave. Of
the Americas
…2008 Begins with Mega-
Lease on Far West Side
The new year began with what’s likely to be
one of its largest deals: Ogilvy New York
announced plans to become a large-scale
bellwether tenant on the far West Side, taking more than 550,000 sf at the Hakimian
Organization’s 636 Eleventh Ave. for its new
headquarters.
Under terms of the long-term lease with
the Hakimian Organization and its partners
Peykar Brothers Realty & Gorjian Properties,
Ogilvy New York will occupy all 11 floors of
the 554,800-sf property, which was built in
1913 as the Auerbach Chocolate factory and
which occupies the entire block on Eleventh
Avenue between 46th and 47th streets. The
company will move from its current headquarters space at the Macklowe
Organization’s Worldwide Plaza and consolidate from a few smaller locations in
Manhattan and Stamford, CT, says Gunther
Schumacher, Ogilvy’s chief business operations officer. Hakimian and the marketing
communications giant have hired Gensler
Architects to reconfigure and design the
space; they’re aiming for LEED certification
on both the interior and core and shell.
Ben Hakimian, a principal with the
Hakimian Organization, cites his property’s
proximity to Midtown as one of its attractions for Ogilvy. Schumacher says the biggest
draw was “around the building itself. It’s
actually a very attractive building for an
agency. It has high ceilings, the ground floor
is 18 feet and the lowest ceiling height is 13
feet. It’s horseshoe shaped so it has windows
everywhere. Once we looked at the building, we immediately fell in love with the
building itself, but when we did the math on
how we work, it also made a lot of sense
rationally.”
The large floorplates at 636 Eleventh will
allow Ogilvy “to configure the space in a
way that’s more conducive to the way we
conduct our business. Twenty years ago, the
way we worked was pretty traditional: people graduated from cubes to inside offices to
exterior offices to large exterior offices to
corner offices. All of that is gone now, essentially. We work a lot more collaboratively,
and our business has become very complex,
so the way teams are formed can be ad hoc
from many different disciplines. Space plays
a huge role in that—to have lots of common
space and be able to configure it at a
moment’s notice.”
The neighborhood itself will soon be the
home of the 222-room Vu Hotel, between
Rapid Exchange
RE Speed Network, in conjunction with
its exclusive media partner GlobeSt.com
and Real Estate Media, recently held the
latest in its successful series of New
York City speed networking events for
commercial real estate professionals.
Several attendees at the event, held at
the new Morgan’s Loft Oak Room,
reportedly told event organizers that the
unique style of one-on-one networking
enabled them to meet other individuals
relevant to their profession.
Real Estate
NEW YORK
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
RICHARD T.
ANDERSON
New York
Building Congress
DAVID ARENA
Grubb & Ellis
MICHAEL D.
BERMAN
Equity Office
STEVE B.
BLEIWEISS
Mancini Duffy
WILLIAM G.
COHEN
Newmark Knight
Frank
LOU COLETTI
Building Trade
Employers’
Association
PATRICK
CRANDALL
Fremont
Investment & Loan
JEFFREY R.
DUNNE
CBRE New York
Tri-State
ROBERT
FREEDMAN
GVA Williams
ROBERT K.
FUTTERMAN
Robert K. Futterman
& Associates
JOSEPH R.
HARBERT
Cushman
& Wakefield
JAMES HEDDEN
Bank of America
SUZANNE
HEIDELBERGER
Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher & Flom LLP
ANDREW L. HERZ
Patterson,
Belknap, Webb,
& Tyler LLP
MICHAEL P.
HIGGINS
CIBC World
Markets
EDWARD JORDAN
Marcus & Millichap
Real Estate
Investment Services
JEFFREY
NEWMAN
W & M Properties
CARL F.
SCHWARTZ
Herrick,
Feinstein LLP
NORMAN
STURNER
Murray Hill
Properties LLC
KENT SWIG
Terra Holdings LLC
FRANKLIN S.
ZUCKERBROT
Sholom &
Zuckerbrot Realty
