Office landlords looking to stand out from the crowd are speaking the word that, in the world of residential real estate, has no peer: penthouse.
Commercial owners across the city are adding glass-ensconced penthouses with outdoor spaces and views in order to make their properties competitive with hip, new workplaces, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“I am talking to a lot of landlords who want to add an additional structure on top, because if you add a structure you are competing with new product, and new product today is getting over $90 a square foot,” Mitchell Konsker, one of JLL’s top office-leasing brokers, said. “Because there are so few available, it commands a premium.”
At the MetLife Building at 200 Park Avenue, Tishman Speyer transformed a long-vacant lounge at the tower’s defunct helipad into a 24,000-square-foot penthouse on the 50th floor. The project cost $24 million, according to the Journal.
“You feel like you can reach out and grab the spire of the Chrysler Building,” Tishman Speyer CEO Rob Speyer said.
Tishman Speyer is doing something similar at 520 Madison Avenue and Georgetown Properties is following suit at 787 11th Avenue.
Stellar Management recently leased the penthouse space at its One Soho Square project to the cosmetics firm MAC. The asking rent was $125 per square foot. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann