Discovery's 150,000 s/f deal puts 850 Third back on map.A new lobby, new elevators and new amenities may be nice, but nothing quite accomplishes the repositioning of a class A office building like landing a big name tenant. Equity Office Properties Trust Equity Office Properties Trust, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is the largest owner of office buildings in the United States. It was formed in 1976 by Samuel Zell [1] and in February 2007, was acquired by the Blackstone Group for $23 billion plus the assumption of , the nation's largest real estate investment trust, did just that with its recent signing of the Discovery Channel for 150,000 s/f at 850 Third Avenue, a property the REIT REIT See: Real Estate Investment Trust REIT See real estate investment trust (REIT). has owned for nearly a decade. As part of the 16-year leasing deal, brokered by Cushman & Wakefield's Mitchell Konsker and Willard Freeman, president of the Freeman Group in Washington, the 21-story 'wedding cake' style tower will be renamed the Discovery Building after the cable network moves in next March. The space will house both domestic and international advertising sales teams for Discovery, as well as offices for the network's offshoot channel, Discovery Kids. It wasn't just the prospect of being the marquee tenant that attracted Discovery to the property. 35,000 s/f floor plates, a back-up generator and expansion rights lifted 850 Third Avenue over three other properties. Those expansion options begin in 2006 and last through 2012 but according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Pandit pan·dit or pun·dit n. 1. A Brahman scholar or learned man. 2. Used as a title of respect for a learned man in India. [Hindi pa Wright, senior executive vice president of human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. and administration at Discovery Communications, "other than a must take 19,000 s/f option in 2007, we have no formal expansion plans at this time." On the heels of the sizable Discovery deal, Equity Office also managed to retain the building's oldest tenants, the New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. Fire and Police Departments, which have 41,074 s/f of space and have been in the building nearly since it was erected in 1960. Considering the fickle reputation city agencies have, crafting an amalgam of old and new tenants was no small feat and something Equity Office's Rich Hartz attributed to "our management team's open dialogue and strong relationship with tenants." |
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