Cravath Signs $900 M Midtown Lease
One of New York’s best-known white-shoe law firms has agreed to pay a breathtaking $900 million to renew its lease on 600,000 square feet of office space in midtown Manhattan for 15 years, starting in 2009.
Cravath Swain & Moore will see its cost-per-square-foot double under the new lease, from $39 to nearly $100, reports Bloomberg. The firm’s offices are located in Worldwide Plaza, at Eighth Avenue and West 50th Street. Its former lease began in 1989.
While the deal represents one of the largest lease commitments ever made, experts say it may not be a bad investment in New York City’s booming commercial office rental market.
“Rents at that level are a very strong statement of how strong this market is and how scarce space is,” says Scott Latham, co-executive director of the investment sales team at Cushman & Wakefield in Manhattan. “I think $100 a square foot is going to look like a pretty good deal in five months.”
