Cambridge University sells space.

Cambridge University Press has sold its 30,000 s/f commercial condominium interest at 40 West 20th Street for $15 million. The deal comes a few months after the academic publisher leased 60,000 s/f at 32 Avenue of the Americas where it plans to relocate and significantly expand its operations.

Cambridge was forced to leave 40 West 20th Street because the commercial condo building had no space it could acquire to accommodate its growing business. Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental conservation organization that owns the top four floors of the building, purchased the three floors, 6, 7, and 8, from Cambridge, which will allow it too to expand. NRDC occupies floors 8, 9, 10, and 11, meaning that its expansion will be contiguous.

Before it leased space at 32 Avenue of the Americas, Cambridge considered purchasing another condo interest rather than renting. The publisher faced a far different market than it did when it purchased its space at 40 West 20th Street in 1989 however. Escalating real estate pricing has far outpaced rental growth, a gap that is only beginning to tighten now that vacancy has dropped below equilibrium in midtown and midtown south.

Cushman & Wakefield executive directors John Picco and Phil Amarante handled the sale for Cambridge and were also members of the C&W team that repped Cambridge in its lease at 32 Avenue of the Americas, a 1.15 million s/f building owned by Rudin Management.

Aside from brokering a number of deals at 32 Avenue of the Americas, Picco and Amarante along with C&W executive vice president Mitchell Arkin comprise the agency team working at 132 West 31st Street which, despite past vacancy, currently has only the 15th floor remaining.

The 22,400 s/f space is being vacated by the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, which is shifting its operations to the entire 10th floor where it is subleasing space from Health Insurance Plan of New York. HIP relocated its offices to 55 Water Street nearly two years ago and has since subleased all of the 130,000 s/f it formerly occupied in the building.

In March, research and engineering company Scientific Application International Corporation subleased the entire 6th floor and 8th floor in a deal that totaled 50,000 s/f. GVA Williams vice chairman Brian Givens repped HIP in the deal, the Staubach Company represented the tenant and Picco, Arkin, and Amarante, approved the transaction for the landlord, a partnership between C&K Properties and Zamir Equities.

Existing tenant, printing and reproductions firm Merisel, also absorbed some of the sublease space in recent months, taking the entire fifth floor in a 25,300 s/f deal that brought the firm's total presence in the building to roughly 100,000 s/f.

Asking rents for the 15th floor are $35 per s/f.