Greenwich American Centre: a classic turn-around.

There is no greater challenge than a well-situated, Class A quality building that stands vacant for five years, as happened from 1989 to 1993 with the Greenwich-American Centre (GAC), in Greenwich, Connecticut. In order to revitalize the building and make it viable, a special level of dedication on the part of the owners, the state, and the brokers was needed to ensure its ultimate success. And in just over a year's time, more than 500,000 square feet, over 85 percent, of the Centre has been leased.

The GAC (formerly known as the American Can building) was built in the early 1970s by the award winning-architect Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore Owings & Merrill for American Can, which used it as its headquarters for nearly 20 years. Set on 155 acres, it has numerous dining areas, a guest house, a man-made lake for fire protection, and recreational and service facilities to suit 3,500 employees. American Can sold it in 1986 to the Greenwich-American Limited Partnership. In 1989 it was left completely unoccupied after the Commercial Credit Corp. acquired American Can, renamed it Primerica and either sold or relocated most of its non-financial divisions.

The problems we faced when trying to lease the GAC, after the 1989 sale, were largely due to pre-existing zoning regulations which prohibited more than three tenants at the building. Realizing the difficulties we would face under such restrictions, the owners were able to overturn the ruling so that unlimited tenants would be allowed as long as the total number of people did not exceed 18 workers per acre. This revised ordinance opened the door for us to anchor the project with a major corporation.

The first tenant to sign on at GAC was Witco Co., a $2.3 billion chemical company which signed a 20-year lease for 292,706 square feet, the largest single contract seen in Fairfield County since the early 1980s. The state offered Witco economic encouragement through employee education, relocation assistance, tax credits and economical utility bills, all of which helped Witco to consolidate more than 800 employees at this space.

Quickly on the heels of this lease, Armonk List, the umbrella organization for Walter Karl Inc. and the LMC/List Maintenance Corporation signed a 10-year lease for 68,540 square feet at the building. The grants and loans offered by Connecticut were also instrumental in bringing Armonk List to Greenwich. Additionally, Corange, Inc., signed a 10-year lease for 17,500 square feet at the building, and plans to use the space as their corporate headquarters. With Paloma Partners Management Company's recent lease of the entire ground floor of the building, the GAC is now more than 85 percent filled.

The Greenwich-American Centre is really a testament to perseverance. Had the owners and brokers involved not been determined to affect the changes necessary to help the GAC to once again be a valuable tenant site, it could very well have remained a white elephant in the community.