Extell, NYC Health + Hospitals top office filers since start of 2020
By Atticus O’Brien-Pappalardo
This report is part of a series of reports looking at development in NYC real estate from January 2020 through May 2021.
New York City developers filed plans for 3.4 million square feet of new office buildings since the start of 2020, with Extell Development and NYC Health + Hospitals leading the way with 548,902 square feet and 605,574 square feet of new construction respectively.
During the same period, developers filed $407.7 million of Alteration-CO plans (previously known as A1 plans) at 299 unique office buildings and $4.2 billion of Alteration plans (previously known as A2 plans) at 2,491 unique office buildings.
PincusCo looked at all office (B – Business) new building plans filed in the city since the start of 2020.
Extell Development and NYC Health + Hospitals were each responsible for two of the 10 largest new building plans for offices since the start of 2020, the analysis found. All of the top five plans called for new office buildings in Manhattan, and totaled over 1.6 million square feet of new construction.
The largest plans, however, came from Rabina Properties in January of this year. The plans called for the construction of a 896-foot tall, 70-story, 452,134-square-foot mixed-use office building with 98 residential units at 520 Fifth Avenue in Grand Central.
Extell, who was behind the third and fourth largest plans during the span, filed plans for a 120-foot tall, nine-story, 354,350-square-foot office building at 180 East 125th Street in East Harlem on April 8, 2020, and a 164-foot tall, 10-story 194,552-square-foot office building at 740 Eighth Avenue in Times Square on June 18, 2020.
The East Harlem plans were among the most significant plans of the year, coming after years of planning and rezoning hurdles.
NYC Health + Hospitals filed the second and fifth largest plans, a 384-foot tall, 21-story, 417,734-square-foot building at 500 East 30th Street in Kips Bay, reportedly to be part of their life-sciences campus, and a 187-foot tall, 10-story, 187,840-square-foot office building at 40 West 137th Street in Central Harlem within the campus of the Harlem Hospital Center.
Brooklyn was the city’s most popular borough for new office development over the stretch, by number of plans filed, with 26 plans. Second was Queens, with 21 plans, followed by 13 in Staten Island, 12 in Manhattan, and eight in The Bronx.
With that being said, plans filed in Manhattan accounted for nearly 60 percent of new office building construction, while the Brooklyn plans made up 21 percent and the Queens plans made up only 15 percent.
Tishman Speyer filed plans for three of the five most expensive office rehab since the start of 2020, the most expensive being $109 million plans calling for work on floors one through 28 of One Madison Avenue. The plans were filed with DOB Now under the job number M00296570 on November 4, 2020. The plans were filed in conjunction with a $128 million project (pre-filed in 2019) which aims to nearly double the size of the building from 14 to 27 floors.
