Howden Tiger Expands at SL Green’s 1350 Sixth Avenue

SL Green lost a major tenant at 1350 Sixth Avenue, but it’s starting to fill the gaps with tenants already in place.

Insurance broker Howden Tiger signed a 10-year renewal at the Plaza District property, the Commercial Observer reported. Previously occupying slightly more than 13,000 square feet, the company expanded its footprint at the property to stretch across nearly 32,000 square feet, adding space on the 34th floor and penthouse.

Howden Tiger moved into the building in 2015 and signed a five-year renewal late in 2021, when TigerRisk Partners acquired a previous iteration of the firm. This January, Howden Group Holdings acquired the firm.

The asking rent for the added space was $90 per square foot. Newmark’s Leo Paytas represented the tenant, while SL Green’s Howard Tenenbaum and Gary Rosen represented the landlord in-house.

The expansion and renewal is a positive development for a property coping with the loss of a significant tenant. Big Four auditing firm KPMG occupied as much as 112,000 square feet at the property, expanding by nearly 20,000 square feet in 2017.

Last year, however, the consulting firm decided to consolidate its space in Manhattan, taking 450,000 square feet at Brookfield Properties’ Two Manhattan West while reducing its office footprint by more than 40 percent. KPMG isn’t set to move to the Hudson Yards tower until 2025.

In August, companies leased 2.5 million square feet of office space in Manhattan, according to Colliers. It was the fourth consecutive month of increased leasing activity in the borough’s office market.

A sizable portion of the leasing activity, however, came from law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell’s extension at RXR’s 450 Lexington Avenue, a deal that accounted for 700,000 total square feet, but only 30,000 square feet of new space.

The average asking rent ticked up to $75.70 per square foot, the highest in Manhattan since October 2020.

— Holden Walter-Warner