Sullivan sees big things ahead for NYC icon: Tom Sullivan, Director of leasing, Empire State Building.

Despite being one of the most recognizable New York City icons, the Empire State Building hasn't enjoyed the type of reputation within Manhattan real estate circles and among potential tenants that its world-renowned status would suggest it deserves.

Instead, the 102 story, 2.25 million s/f building in recent years has been better known for having an ungainly amount of small tenants, feuding ownership, and office space that, ranking in the class B category, hasn't exactly had the flair to draw in high profile corporate tenants on par with the building's fame and stature.

But that's changing. While owners Leona Helmsley and Peter Malkin have seemingly resolved their beef amongst themselves, Tom Sullivan, the Empire State Building's director of leasing, has been busy working to ameliorate the rest.

Sullivan and the team of brokers he leads at Helmsley Spear, the leasing agent of the building, have quietly begun amassing and combining space on a handful of floors--the initial stages of what he is planning to make a building-wide effort to consolidate space into larger blocks in order to entice big tenants. One such chunk, a full half floor of vacant space that Sullivan even had stripped of the drab drop ceilings typical to most of the building's offices, gives brokers and interested tenants the chance to ponder the great potential of such a blank canvas while simultaneously vanquishing any expectation they may have for a building comprised of clusters of claustrophobic, dingy offices.

Accentuating the building's awesome height is the lack of very tall buildings in its direct vicinity, a feature that preserves unobstructed view corridors, even on the lower floors. Sandwiched between Midtown and Downtown, and buffered by the silence of altitude, the upper offices, such as the half floor space that has become a mainstay of Sullivan's tours in the building, feel almost removed from the city, the ultimate vantage point to experience vistas so grand they completely omit the bustle of the teaming streets below to convey an almost lonely vastness.

Sullivan observed as I was instantly drawn to the windows. To gaze out through a single pane is not enough, one feels compelled to march around the space and take advantage of its views east, west, and south. Even adjacent windows appear to offer subtly unique sightlines.

"Brokers do the same thing when they tour the space," Sullivan said with a smile. "It's the Empire State Building, but people are still just blown away when they come up here."

If the large, plain space expressed the building's raw potential, the next stop on Sullivan's tour, to an architecture firm new to the building, suggested just how that potential could be fulfilled. Although their space was considerably smaller, the firm's quarters were immaculate. The partition between the outside hallway and the firm's reception room was a floor to ceiling pane of glass unlike anything installed in the building's plethora of other office fronts. Inside, the office's cubicles were partitioned with low dividers that had the effect of accentuating the open airiness of the space and taking maximum of the natural light and air that most spaces in the building boast.

Like in the larger vacant space, drop ceilings had been banished exposing a network of snakelike ventilation shafts, large and admittedly somewhat clunky looking, but possessing an antique charm and retro aesthetic that contributed to the chic atmosphere.

"This is what we are going to see more of, spaces like this," Sullivan said. "This building is 75 years old and yet it's a 21st century building."

Sullivan has worked for the Empire State Building nearly his entire professional career. In college, he spent summers filling in for various building workers when they would take time off for vacation. For one stretch of the summer he would sub at the information desk, the next he would do time as an elevator operator and then also as a security guard. He studied economics in college, but by the time he graduated he felt as if he had really earned two degrees, one in the building's operations as well. Yet continuing to work in the Empire State Building wasn't what he originally planned to do with his career. "At first, I thought that I would be a police officer," Sullivan said. "My dad, my granddad, my brother and my sister are all police officers. It's a family thing. But I also had the idea of doing something in line, at least somewhat, with my college degree."

But the general manager of the building, a man who Sullivan had befriended during his summers there, intervened and mentioned to him there was an opening in the building's leasing department. Sullivan took the position and during his 18-year career as an agent for the building, the last 12 of which he has spent as the director of leasing, he estimates that he and the team of brokers he leads have leased the entire property more than twice.

In just the last year, he and his brokers leased 330,000 s/f in 280 transactions. 145,000 s/f of that were deals with new tenants. The rest of the space was leased as renewed and also expansions for extra tenants. The building's vacancy hovers around 10%, trailing the market slightly.

"Historically we've been ahead of the market," Sullivan said. "But with the way we're starting to try to reposition the building we feel that the vacancy will soon begin to shrink."

Sullivan welcomes the day when that repositioning effort is complete and the building's fleet of small tenants evolves into a smaller roster of large tenants.

"When you're in this business for a while, you start to see that it's just as hard to do a 350 s/f lease as it is a 10,000 s/f lease," Sullivan said.