Metlife signs 400,000 s/f lease.

MetLife has finally completed its deal for hundreds of thousand of s/f at 1095 Avenue of the Americas, months after it entered into talks to take the space and for rents roughly $10 higher per s/f than what it had originally negotiated to pay.

Written reports put the size of the deal at a little over 400,000 s/f, about 200,000 s/f Jess than what the company was originally reported to be considering but one of the largest leases of the year in midtown nonetheless.

Rents at 1095 Avenue of the Americas jumped when the building's landlord, Equity Office Properties, was purchased by private equity giant, The Blackstone Group, for $19 billion. According to market experts, Blackstone was eager to increase rents in an effort to boost returns from its record-breaking acquisition.

Charging higher rents after the preliminary terms of a lease have been laid out is a much frowned upon practice in the real estate industry called retrading. To brokers, it violates the etiquette normally observed during the deal making process in which landlords refrain from boosting rents even though the market may have driven rates higher in the weeks-long, sometimes months-long, process of converting a preliminary agreement into a finished lease.

Brokers say that 1095's change in ownership effectively allowed the new landlord to reexamine EOP's deals without damaging its reputation however.

Jones Lang LaSalle represented MetLife in the transaction. A CB Richard team led by Robert Alexander represents the landlord at 1095 Avenue of the Americas.

The rental spike seems to have scuttled a 238,000 s/f deal with law firm Goodwin Proctor, who is now said to be looking at 150,000 s/f in the soon to be completed New York Times Building.