SL Green boosts portfolio with key deals at Park Ave. office towers

In a just-signed, 270,000 square-foot mega-deal, sources told us, investment bank PJT Partners converted an 80,000 square-foot sublease to a 130,000 square-foot direct lease and renewed on its existing 140,000 sf at 280 Park Ave.

The 1.25 million square-foot tower owned by a joint venture of SL Green and Vornado Realty Trust recently underwent a $150 million modernization which included a new, block-long lobby and infrastructure upgrades.

And, as we forecast last month, Stonepeak Partners just signed a 15-year lease for 77,000 square feet at 245 Park Ave., where SLG has called in architects KPF to assist in a redesign of the 1.8 million square-foot tower.

Stonepeak follows a recent, 76,000 square foot lease for Swedish private equity firm EQT Partners.

SL Green declined to confirm or comment on either transaction.

In advance of the investors call, analysts at BTIG renewed the REIT’s “buy” rating and said the city’s largest commercial office landlord “is better positioned today to benefit from flight-to-quality.”

The analysts cited “strong execution in a challenging year” and credited SLG with “significantly repositioning its portfolio over the past seven years.”

But while noting that SLG’s Manhattan leasing totaled an impressive 1.7 million square feet so far this year, they cautioned that a weak investment-sale market caused the company to temporarily pause several sale initiatives.

BTIG said that Holliday will likely face questions about leasing progress at SLG’s newly redeveloped One Madison Avenue and the status of its Times Square casino proposal with Caesars Entertainment.

Another large deal which we predicted got done last week.

BDT & MSD Partners took about 70,000 square feet at Olayan Group’s 550 Madison Ave., bringing the reborn, former Sony tower, where Chubb is the anchor tenant, to more than 80 percent leased.

The two previously separate financial firms merged early this year.

With 550 Madison’s 750,000 square feet of offices clearly on their way to full lease-up, we await news on COTE restaurateur Simon Kim’s 15,000 square-foot dining complex on three floors.

There have been neither details nor any visible construction at his Gracious Hospitality Management’s planned, “multi-faceted” eatery at the corner of East 55th Street.