Vornado’s Steven Roth and One Park Avenue (Getty, Vornado)
Since first taking up 83,000 square feet at One Park Avenue in 1999, NYU Langone Medical Center has expanded its office space at the property more than 10 times.
The medical center most recently increased its footprint last fall, bringing the total to 633,000 square feet in one of Manhattan’s largest office leases of 2020, according to Colliers International. Located four blocks west of Langone’s main medical campus on First Avenue in Midtown South, the building is one of the hospital’s key administrative addresses.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired a 45 percent stake in the 20-story mixed-use property in 2014, while Vornado Realty Trust owns the rest. The landlords have since spent more than $64 million on capital improvements including lobby and elevator upgrades.
In February, Vornado and CPPIB refinanced the building with a $525 million single-asset CMBS loan from Deutsche Bank and Barclays. Documents associated with the securitization provide an inside look at the property’s finances.
As of February, the 943,000-square-foot property was 98 percent leased to 22 tenants, with a weighted average remaining lease term of more than 20 years. This figure is boosted by NYU Langone’s lease, which extends through 2050 and accounts for 67 percent of the building’s rentable area.
In addition to 595,000 square feet of office space, NYU Langone leases 21,000 square feet of retail space and 17,000 square feet of storage space. One Park Avenue has 96,000 square feet of retail space and 40,000 square feet of storage space in total.
The second largest tenant at the property is Robert A.M. Stern Architects, whose headquarters are on the 16th and 17th floors. The firm is known for designing many of New York’s major luxury condo projects, including Vornado’s 220 Central Park South.
The third-largest tenant is Related Companies-owned Equinox, which has a 37,000-square-foot health club and 28,000 square feet in office space at the property.
Due to the impact of the pandemic, Equinox was granted a rent reduction and deferral for July to September last year, to be paid back over 21 months — and was seeking additional rent relief as of February, according to the loan prospectus. Overall, rent collections at the building stood at 96 percent at the end of 2020.
One Park Avenue has a peculiar condominium structure which allows NYU Langone to benefit from property tax exemptions due to its non-profit status. The building is divided into two condominium units, one of which is fully leased to NYU. NYU’s leasehold interest, in turn, is subdivided into condominium units which the city’s Department of Finance treats as property owned by NYU.
