Former CBS home Black Rock nearly 90% leased after amenity-filled transformation
Twentieth Century office towers can’t ⛎survive in the Twenty-First on their historic reputations, architectural di🌳stinction or landmark status.
Companies today place a higher value on an older property’s contemporary assets such as state-of-the-art systems and high-end ameni🦩ties that are for tenants’ use only.
The latest trophy building to complete a transform🎃ative repositioning is Harbor Group International’s 51 W. 52nd St., the fabled former home of CBS known𝔉 as Black Rock.
It was the first and only office tower by architect Eero Saarine♔n, who designed the la꧙ndmarked TWA Terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport.
The $128 million Bl🐟ack Rock project brought the distinctive tower on the East Side of Sixth Avenue a plush, lounge-like tenants’-only l𝄹obby on the 52d Street side and a modernized public lobby on 51st Street.
But only tenants enjoy the project’s “fun” component — a cellar-level amenity suite including a state-of-the-art fitness center, a yoga room and a cafe.
All the changes helped generate 325,000 square feet in new and renewal leases that brought the tower’s 900,000 square feet to nearly 90% leased since HGI bought it for $760 million in October 2021 — no small feat after original owner CBS moved most of its offices out a few years ago.
“CBS was the most powerful media company in the world when the tower opened in 1964,” said Ho💛ward Fiddle, head of the CBRE leasing team. “It was so ahead of its time with column-free floor plates.”
Black Rock’s smallish, 25,000 square-foot floor plates, which result from the way th🍎e tower is set deeply back from the street line, make it “more of a boutique building than is normal on Sixth Avenue. The floors get natura🧸l light through floor-to-ceiling windows,” Fiddle said.
The tower’s notable tenants include law firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen &ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚamp; Katz and Canadian pension fund CPPIB, which just moved inౠto the top two floors.
About 13🐽5,000 square feet remain available. Asking rents range from $90 pe♔r square foot on lower floors to $140 psf on higher ones.
Although not a household name in the city, HGI and its affiliates control a $20 bꦉillion investment portfolio in the US and E♛urope.
Black Ro⭕ck’s rejuvenation belongs to the overall revival of Midtown Sixth Avenue, which appeared to be headed for trouble before the pandemic when some large tenants, CBS among them, announced plans to move away.
But the corridor’s vacancy rate today is only between ten and eleven percent depending on which market report you follow, compared with a Manhattan-wide average ofꦬ twenty-plus percent. Much of the corridor’s strength is due to extraordinary investments major landlords made in their properties.
As we’ve noted before, the upgrades include Rockefeller Group’s top-to-bottom redesign of the former Time + Life tower at 1271 Sixth Ave. and the many improvements to the original Rockefeller Center complex made by ✱Tishman Speyer.
The commercial refinance game is the toughest in town these 🌃days. But Williams Equities completed a $155 million, five year CMBS loan for its 28-40 W. 23rd St., a familiar sight to Ladies Mile shoppers for its big Home Depot signs.
Citi Real Estate Funding is the lender. The new loan will help to fund building improvements 🐬and amenities that are to include an updated at༒rium and skylights and a building-wide roof deck.
A Williams Equities spokesman said the refinancing “is in line with our successful, timeless multi-generational strategy🌞.”
Office tenants at the 578,105 square-foot 28-40 W. 23rd — once a department store — include numerous creative, digital and tech firms.
