New Jack City
April 27th, 2004, 07:55 PM
NY POST
340 MAD. ON THE MOVE
By STEVE CUOZZO
April 27, 2004 -- FIVE years of hard work at 340 Madison Ave. have finally begun to pay off for Harry and Billy Macklowe. The father and son just landed their first tenant at the site, where they've converted five obsolete brick structures between 43rd and 44th streets into one modern office building wrapped in a gleaming, green-on-green curtain wall.
Sources said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a unit of the U.S. Treasury, has signed a lease for 43,000 square feet, taking over the whole fifth floor and part of the fourth.
The Macklowes, meanwhile, won approval from the city's Standards and Appeals board to enlarge the building from its original 550,000 square feet to about 700,000 feet.
Neither Macklowe could be reached. Calls to the brokers involved in the lease - Studley's Michael Goldman, who represented the OCC, and Macklowe's agents, a Cushman & Wakefield team including Mitchell Konsker and Tara Stacom - were not returned.
The project has been one of Midtown's most interesting works in progress. The Macklowes bought the mortgage on the then-bankrupt property in 1999 and later purchased the land under four of the five old buildings.
Last spring, Billy Macklowe and Christian Science Church on East 43rd Street, which held the ground lease on one-fifth of the assemblage, made a deal that enabled the developer to take down the brick wall between the house of worship and the rest of the site and complete the re-cladding.
Now that 340 Madison has all the blessings it needs, the job should be finished by the end of the year.
Rendering by Jon Seagull:
http://www.jonseagull.com/images/p_342_4.jpg
340 MAD. ON THE MOVE
By STEVE CUOZZO
April 27, 2004 -- FIVE years of hard work at 340 Madison Ave. have finally begun to pay off for Harry and Billy Macklowe. The father and son just landed their first tenant at the site, where they've converted five obsolete brick structures between 43rd and 44th streets into one modern office building wrapped in a gleaming, green-on-green curtain wall.
Sources said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a unit of the U.S. Treasury, has signed a lease for 43,000 square feet, taking over the whole fifth floor and part of the fourth.
The Macklowes, meanwhile, won approval from the city's Standards and Appeals board to enlarge the building from its original 550,000 square feet to about 700,000 feet.
Neither Macklowe could be reached. Calls to the brokers involved in the lease - Studley's Michael Goldman, who represented the OCC, and Macklowe's agents, a Cushman & Wakefield team including Mitchell Konsker and Tara Stacom - were not returned.
The project has been one of Midtown's most interesting works in progress. The Macklowes bought the mortgage on the then-bankrupt property in 1999 and later purchased the land under four of the five old buildings.
Last spring, Billy Macklowe and Christian Science Church on East 43rd Street, which held the ground lease on one-fifth of the assemblage, made a deal that enabled the developer to take down the brick wall between the house of worship and the rest of the site and complete the re-cladding.
Now that 340 Madison has all the blessings it needs, the job should be finished by the end of the year.
Rendering by Jon Seagull:
http://www.jonseagull.com/images/p_342_4.jpg