Firms take last remaining big blocks at 1166 Sixth Ave.

Hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. and leading executive search firm Christian & Timbers LLC are the latest tenants to secure space at Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc.'s 1166 Avenue of the Americas, Cushman & Wakefield announced, bringing the class-A tower to 100% occupancy.

D.E. Shaw signed an 11.5-year lease for 112,270 s/f at the building, located between 45 and 46th Streets. The hedge fund, which will also remain in the 185,000 s/f it occupies at 120 W. 45th St., will move into the entire fourth, fifth and sixth floors at 1166 Avenue of the Americas. Christian & Timbers signed a 10-year lease for 37,418 s/f on the entire third floor of the building. The firm will relocate and expand from the 25,000 s/f it currently occupies at 1177 Avenue of the Americas.

Cushman & Wakefield brokerage professional Andrew Sachs, Tim Gibson and Marc Packman are the exclusive leasing agents for 1166 Avenue of the Americas. The team represented Marsh & McLennan in marketing the available space at the building and in lease negotiations with the tenants.

Joseph Fabrizi, an executive director at Cushman & Wakefield, represented Christian & Timbers in its site search and in lease negotiations with the landlord. D.E. Shaw was represented by Tim Dempsey and Roger Griswald of CB Richard Ellis.

"The success of our leasing campaign at 1166 Avenue of the Americas is due to the tremendous quality of the building, the large floor plates, and continued demand by the world's most sophisticated businesses for the Avenue of the Americas segment of the marketplace," said Sachs.

"Christian & Timbers had outgrown its previous location," said Fabrizi. "The ownership of 1166 Avenue of the Americas was able to accommodate the firm's expansion needs."

D. E. Shaw is a specialized investment and technology development firm with approximately $23 billion in aggregate capital. The firm's activities center on various aspects of the intersection between technology and finance. Founded in 1980, Christian & Timbers is ranked among the top 10 U.S. executive search firms. The firm's clients include leading Fortune 1000, NASDAQ and venture-backed companies, as well as private equity firms and their portfolio companies.

D.E. Shaw and Christian & Timbers join several other well-known companies who this year signed leases at 1166 Avenue of the Americas. Sprint Communications committed to 37,418 s/f in June, and Advance Magazine Publishers leased 80,480 s/f there earlier this year. Year-to-date, Sachs and Gibson have represented Marsh & McLennan in the leasing of more than 267,000 s/f at 1166 Avenue of the Americas. Though the building is currently at 100% occupancy, Cushman & Wakefield is marketing a 315,108 s/f block of space in the building that will become available in January 2008.

"With large blocks of contiguous space continuing to decline in midtown Manhattan, we continue to see a great deal of interest in the space that will be coming online," said Gibson.

Built in 1974, 1166 Avenue of the Americas is a 44-story, class A officer tower totaling about 1.5 million square feet. In addition to Marsh & McLennan and the aforementioned new tenants in 2006, other major tenants include JP Morgan Chase and INVESCO.