NEW YORK | 175 Park Avenue (Grand Hyatt) | 1,581 FT | 92 FLOORS

[NYguy]

https://commercialobserver.com/2025/01/tf-cornerstones-jake-elghanayan-interview/

TF Cornerstone’s Jake Elghanayan Talks Playing the Long Game in CRE
That includes office


BY MARK HALLUM
JANUARY 21, 2025

What’s the state of 175 Park Avenue?

It feels like we’re in a pretty good position now. I think it’s the best location for an office building in New York. We’ve got a great design, a great team with SOM and RXR, and I think the trophy market in general has rebounded for a few years now. But there was enough of an uncertainty overhang from remote work that I think people had a harder time making the long-term, forward-looking commitments that you need to start a new building.

We’ve seen that that overhang about remote work has mostly gone. I don’t think people are uncertain about how much office occupancy they’ll have in the future, as much as they might have had in the last few years. Plus all the new space has been absorbed — everything that started pre-pandemic. So we’re pretty bullish that this is going to be a good year for 175 Park.

It’s been a long story in the making. We bought the Grand Central Terminal air rights back in 2016, and made a relatively quick deal when J.P. Morgan wanted air rights for their headquarters — we sold off about half right there. Hyatt had been our first call from the beginning; we thought that that was really a great place to land the air rights and to build a big tower to replace the hotel.

We went through a long zoning process that was actually pretty productive, led to improvements in the design in certain ways, and also created public benefits that’ll be within the building. Then we spent the next year basically drawing and working out the development plans in earnest so that the building was ready to go. We really started our leasing efforts in earnest in the back half of `23. But it hadn’t been the best environment because people were saying, “Well, I don’t know. Do I need a million square feet or 500,000 square feet?” They didn’t know how to peg their future needs.

But I think now we’re seeing much more of that uncertainty falling away, and people want the newest, best, well-located space near mass transit.