NEW YORK | 235 East 42nd Street (Pfizer) | FT | FLOORS

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...ase-new-office

Pfizer plans to sell midtown HQ, will lease new office
The drugmaker has been located at the East 42nd Street location since 1961

By Amanda Fung
October 17, 2016

Pfizer decided to move because upgrading its current office would have taken a "substantial investment." The majority of employees in midtown will be relocated to the new space, while some will be moved to locations in the tristate area. Pfizer has been located at 235 E. 42nd St. since 1961. It was founded as a chemicals firm operating out of Brooklyn.

http://nypost.com/2017/01/26/pfizer-...le-relocation/

Pfizer picks Cushman & Wakefield to guide building sale, relocation

By Lois Weiss January 26, 2017

Pfizer has picked a winner for its plum assignment.

The pharmaceutical giant has chosen Cushman & Wakefield to guide both its relocation and the sale of its current buildings at 235 and 219 E. 42 Street, The Post has learned.

The current interconnected properties are expected to fetch around $500 million as they could be redeveloped larger by the next owners under the proposed Midtown East rezoning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/n...ghts-deal.html

Catholic Church May Cash In on Air Rights in Midtown Rezoning Deal

By J. DAVID GOODMAN and WILLIAM NEUMAN
JULY 27, 2017

The archdiocese wanted the city to pass a rezoning plan that would allow it greater freedom to sell the valuable air rights from the cathedral, estimated at 1.1 million square feet, to developers.

....Mr. Garodnick said that while there is no limit on height, differences in design as well as light and density requirements would determine how tall the towers would be. But whatever goes up will probably be significantly bigger than what is there now, in part because of the ability to buy air rights from landmarks like St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“These are dense buildings in an area which should have density,” said Mr. Garodnick

....The East Midtown rezoning allows the air rights from buildings designated as landmarks to be sold anywhere within a 78-block area. That makes them much more valuable because, in many instances, the air rights previously had few or no development sites that they could be transferred to.

As the deal was finalized before the vote, Pfizer told its employees in New York that it would be leaving its headquarters on East 42nd Street. The company in particular benefited from the rezoning: The headquarters site was significantly rezoned to allow more development, increasing its value.

“After much deliberation and analysis we have concluded the time is right to move from our current New York headquarters,” top Pfizer executives wrote in an email obtained by The New York Times. “We are planning to move to a Manhattan location that provides colleagues with a modern office space of the future.”

SITE 15





SITE 16






https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...e-long-way-off

...Of the 16 spots the city has called “projected development sites,” nine have multiple owners, meaning a developer would first have to buy them all out, a time-consuming process called an assemblage.

...The Pfizer building may be a more likely opportunity. The age of the building and the fact that it has only one occupant makes “the potential for redevelopment easier,” Joan Campion, a spokeswoman for the pharmaceutical giant, said in an email. The company intends to sell and vacate the property because its infrastructure is outdated and “not conducive to an evolving, more-efficient workplace,” she said.

https://commercialobserver.com/2017/...east-rezoning/

Pfizer’s existing 675,000-square-foot headquarters on 235 East 42nd Street was increased to 15 from 10. (The company is looking at six or seven different places in the city to relocate, and an FAR increase makes their building more marketable to potential buyers.)

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3363773

East Midtown zoning overhaul to bring 16 new, taller buildings

BY ERIN DURKIN
July 28, 2017

The blueprint, which covers 78 blocks in the heart of Manhattan, is expected to lead to the construction of 16 new buildings over the next two decades, bigger and taller than what is currently allowed.

“East Midtown is back,” Councilman Daniel Garodnick (D-Manhattan) said at a City Hall press conference Thursday. “This is a plan that will reestablish East Midtown as the crown jewel of our business districts.”

...The rezoning also delivers a major boon to Pfizer, whose building is included even though it doesn’t line up with the rest of the district, and will see its property value soar as it looks to sell the site. The company has committed to remain in Manhattan when it moves to a new site, though that promise is not legally binding.

[NYguy]

I won't miss these buildings, but I'm sure there is someone who will object.


Proximity to the rest of the neighborhood...

[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/09/g...east-rezoning/

Get ready for a ton of new office space (maybe): City Council greenlights rezoning of Midtown East
Legislation could mean 6.5M sf of new office space


By Kathryn Brenzel
August 09, 2017

The City Council on Wednesday cleared the way for 6.5 million square feet of new office space to rise in Midtown East.

The council approved rezoning more than 70 blocks in the district, allowing developers to build to a higher floor area ratio (FAR) — the highest being an FAR of 27 in some areas.

“This is certainly the right place to put a lot of new density,” Council member Dan Garodnick said before the vote, noting that the district accounts for 10 percent of the city’s property tax revenue. “The goal is to improve [Midtown East] not to keep it the way it is.”

Nice when the politicians say something that makes sense.

[chris08876]

In other words, more super talls will arise. Further catapulting NYC into being the super tall capital. We are almost there!

[Crawford]

I wonder if this site could be the new Chase World HQ.

They're actively seeking proposals for a new HQ tower, and current HQ is just a few blocks away.

[NYguy]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/n...manhattan.html

New York City Council Approves Rezoning Plan for Midtown Manhattan

By PATRICK McGEEHAN
AUG. 9, 2017

The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a rezoning for a section of Midtown Manhattan that is likely to make the area even more densely packed with high-rise office buildings but that promises to yield improvements to subway stations and public spaces.

The change will also allow several buildings with landmark status, including St. Patrick’s Cathedral, to transfer their unused development rights to building sites anywhere in the affected 78-block area. The rezoned blocks, known as East Midtown, run from East 39th Street to East 57th Street, from Third to Madison Avenues.

...Large employers have been leaving that part of Midtown for state-of-the-art buildings at the Hudson Yards project on the Far West Side or at the new World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. City officials have been seeking ways to increase East Midtown’s appeal since Michael R. Bloomberg was mayor.

...The change could result in more ultra-tall towers like One Vanderbilt, which is going up near Grand Central Terminal and will be nearly as tall as the Empire State Building. When all of the additional development rights have been used in a decade or two, the Chrysler Building could cease to stand out on the Midtown skyline.

Before all of the new towers can sprout, developers must strike deals with the owners of landmark buildings like St. Patrick’s. The cathedral has not made full use of development rights for the block it occupies on Fifth Avenue opposite Rockefeller Center, and can now sell the rest, totaling about 1.1 million square feet.

[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/11/m...-hudson-yards/


By Kathryn Brenzel
August 11, 2017

The City Council on Wednesday approved the rezoning of 73 blocks in the district, paving the way for roughly 6.5 million square feet of new office space to join the skyline. Leading up to the rezoning, the City Planning Commission identified 16 sites — many composed of multiple buildings — that are likely to take advantage of the density bonus in the next 20 years or so.

The site that stands to gain the most space under the rezoning is the so-called Pfizer site, the pharmaceutical giant’s headquarters on East 42nd Street. Under the rezoning, the site can add 781,869 square feet of space — bringing its total to nearly 1.9 million square feet.

Pfizer is looking to sell its headquarters and is in the process of scoping out a new location somewhere in Manhattan. Under the rezoning, the Pfizer site automatically upgraded its floor area ratio (FAR) from 10 to 15. Some officials and community members argued that this unfairly freed the site’s owners from paying for public realm improvements — as is required from other property owners seeking to up their density. City officials stood by the change, saying that most of the district already had an FAR of 15, and that the Pfizer site was simply an anomaly that should be remedied.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Bob Knakal believes that the Pfizer site is one of the only properties in the district that is likely to take advantage of the rezoning anytime soon. Many of the sites identified by the city have multiple owners and have tenants whose leases don’t end for several years.

[NYguy]

Rare good news for both the Hudson Yards and Midtown East...


http://nypost.com/2017/08/25/pfizer-...far-west-side/

Pfizer set to move into The Spiral on far West Side

By Steve Cuozzo
August 25, 2017

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has chosen Tishman Speyer’s dramatic new office skyscraper The Spiral for its new headquarters, The Post has learned.

Although it wasn’t clear whether a lease has yet been signed, Pfizer has definitively made up its mind on the planned Hudson Yards-area cloudbuster, where it will take about 800,000 square feet, sources familiar with the situation said late Thursday.

The 65-story, 2.85-million rentable square-foot Spiral is designed by Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels. To rise west of 10th Avenue at 509 W. 34th St., the $3.2 billion, 1005-foot-tall tower takes its name from stepped, tree-filled terraces on all four sides that curl upwards around its façade like a necklace.

Pfizer’s decision marks an another giant leap forward for the Hudson Yards District, an official west of Ninth Avenue city zoning designation that includes both the 26-acre Hudson Yards complex owned by Related Cos. and several different partners and Brookfield Property Partner’s 7-acre Manhattan West.

The district also includes two development sites whose owners need an anchor tenant to break ground — The Spiral and Joseph Moinian’s 3 Hudson Boulevard at 11th Avenue and 34th Street.

Once completed, the lease with Pfizer will allow Tishman Speyer to get The Spiral out of the ground, sources said. Pfizer had also considered the Related and Brookfield sites among other options.

Earlier this year, Pfizer hired Cushman & Wakefield to market its current East 42nd Street headquarters. Pfizer held off on committing to The Spiral until East Midtown Zoning was passed two weeks ago, sources said. That decision allows a much larger building to go up at the 42nd Street location and thus makes Pfizer’s old property much more valuable.

Pfizer’s move will mark the latest major corporate relocation out of East Midtown. Others that have moved to — or soon will move to — the Hudson Yards District include Coach Inc., Time Warner, BlackRock, Skadden Arps, the National Hockey League, Accenture, Steve Cohen’s Point 72 and the Schiller, Boies law firm.

The Pfizer deal will also join the battle for tenants between The Spiral and Related’s 50 Hudson Yards just south of it across the street. Related’s tower, roughly as big as Tishman Speyer’s, signed BlackRock as its anchor tenant earlier this year for 847,000 square feet.

Tishman Speyer, led by CEO Rob Speyer, paid $438 million for the Spiral site in 2014. It later bought additional air rights from the Imperatore family and from the city and state for a total of $108 million.

In April, Tishman Speyer announced a partnership with China’s HNA Property Group for both The Spiral and the Macy’s department store development site in downtown Brooklyn.

[NYguy]

http://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/p...kyscraper-post

Pfizer's hunt for new Manhattan HQ lands on snazzy Spiral skyscraper: report





by Tracy Staton
Aug 25, 2017

Pfizer, Manhattan’s hometown drug giant, has settled on brand-new digs near the Hudson River. And they’ll be quite an improvement over its current 1960s-era headquarters near Grand Central Station.

The drugmaker plans to pick up and move its thousands of HQ staff into a glitzy skyscraper dubbed The Spiral, the New York Post reports. Designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, the glass-curtained building with its upward-climbing ring of terraces is planned for a site in the Hudson Yards development.

Anyone who’s walked past Pfizer’s world headquarters on 42nd Street knows that the 34-story building has seen better days, and the company started its hunt last year, planning to identify a new spot while selling its current home. The goal was to sell by the end of this year and move to “a new, more modern” home by 2019, spokeswoman Joan Campion told FiercePharma at the time.

Campion said on Friday that Pfizer can't comment yet on the fruits of its headquarters search. "We are still in the process and expect to have something to announce either later this year or early 2018," she said.

Selling just got a lot more attractive, too, according to the Post’s sources, who said that a recent rezoning in Midtown will allow a much taller building to rise on the Pfizer site. And that, of course, makes the ground itself more valuable.

In picking The Spiral, Pfizer will be playing a role in the shifting New York skyline. The Spiral is a 2.85-million-square-foot project, and according to the Post, Pfizer plans to take 800,000 square feet of it—a commitment that will help developer Tishman Speyer get its building out of blueprints and into reality.

A “substantial majority” of Pfizer’s headquarters staff will work in the new offices after the move, Campion said, though “some colleagues—based on where their teams are ultimately located—may move to Pfizer's other facilities in the metropolitan area.”

[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/2018/04/10/d...n-hq-for-360m/

David Werner buying Pfizer’s Midtown HQ for $360M
Pharma giant finalizes deal at Tishman Speyer's West Side skyscraper; Midtown properties stand to gain from area rezoning





By Mark Maurer
April 10, 2018

As it finalized its new lease at a proposed Hudson Yards skyscraper, Pfizer struck a deal to sell its longtime Midtown office buildings on East 42nd Street to David Werner for about $360 million, The Real Deal has learned.

The deal would be for the fee position at 219 and the leasehold position at 235, sources said. It would involve a leaseback to Pfizer of at least five years, given that the company’s new home at Tishman Speyer’s Spiral is not expected to be ready until 2022.

On Tuesday, Tishman Speyer announced that it had finalized lease terms with Pfizer for 800,000 square feet at the Spiral, its Bjarke Ingels-designed skyscraper at 66 Hudson Boulevard.

Sources said Werner is still weighing his plan for the buildings, which could benefit significantly from the Midtown East rezoning.

[yankeesfan1000]

I'd bet the farm they take advantage of rezoning, which would mean they could build something close to 2MM sf. Being one of the first new buildings up in this area far outweighs spending hundreds of millions putting lipstick on a pig.

[Sky88]

Now, I wonder ... what will does David Werner do with this tower since it's an old building to throw down?

[NYguy]

Most likely, it will be torn down to make way for a new tower. It's one of the few sites where a new, large office tower can go. But that will happen after the Spiral is built. In that time, the property could change hands again.



https://nypost.com/2018/04/10/pfizer...-hudson-yards/

The Post has learned, meanwhile, that Pfizer will sell its buildings at 219 and 235 E. 42nd St. to press-shy, Brooklyn-based investor David Werner for about $360 million. Werner, who’s a part-owner of 150 E. 42nd St. and 5 Times Square, is expected to tear the old Pfizer digs down for a new tower — but lease them back to Pfizer until the company moves to The Spiral around 2022.

[NYguy]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiMgHUil...y=lukedegrossi

[Hudson11]

the wheels are turning.

realert: REIT, Deutsche Joining Werner on NY Deals

Syndicator David Werner has lined up Alexandria Real Estate Equities and Deutsche Asset Management as his equity partners for two adjacent office buildings in Midtown Manhattan he is buying from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

Werner in April agreed to pay about $365 million for the 350,000-square-foot building at 219 East 42nd Street and the leasehold interest in the 825,000-sf building at 235 East 42nd Street. Pfizer, which is being represented by Cushman & Wakefield, will lease back both properties for five years.

Morgan Stanley lends Werner and partners $150M for Pfizer HQ buy

Werner and Alexandria are buying the fee position on Pfizer’s 350,000-square-foot building at 219 East 42nd Street, which they will lease back to the pharmaceutical company for five years.
Alexandria will hold the majority interest in the property, and will have sole ownership after Pfizer’s lease expires. The loan from Morgan Stanley has a five-year term to coincide with the change in ownership.
Werner and Deutsche Bank’s asset management spinoff, meanwhile, are purchasing a leasehold on Pfizer’s larger building, the 825,000-square-foot 235 East 42nd Street. The asset manager will hold the controlling interest on the lease, which runs for another 40 years.

[PeterQM]

First Rendering of Office Tower Replacing Pfizer's 42nd Street Headquarters

[jackster99]

^Looks maybe 700 feet?

[Barney Greengrass]

So many good things going on in those renderings, shows real care for the site. Midtown should be so lucky, hope it stays the course!

[NYguy]

The rendering above, created by MOTIV Studio, shows just what an enlarged tower might look like. The view looks west down 42nd Street with the Chrysler Building and One Vanderbilt in the background. The depicted tower rises approximately 45 stories tall and could stretch 800 feet high due to the ceiling heights necessary in modern-day office buildings.

Not likely what would get built there, but we are at least moving towards that conversation.

[NYguy]

https://www.globest.com/2018/07/13/a...363-5mm/?amp=1

Constructed in 1905, the 10-story building at 219 E. 42nd St. offers 350,000 rentable square feet. Built in 1960, the 33-floor structure at 235 E. 42nd St. has 823,623 square feet. The property will provide significant and immediate net operating income growth with a strong yield from an investment grade tenant, according to Alexandria. The company further states that upon the expiration of Pfizer’s lease, the asset will provide additional opportunities to increase cash flows by converting and redeveloping the property into office and laboratory space.

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-e...biotech-campus

The firm recently purchased Pfizer's former headquarters on East 42nd Street with a partner for roughly $200 million. It also just finished a deal to buy a warehouse in Long Island City for $75 million that it will convert into lab space. Marcus said the projects will allow it to add a modest amount of lab space to the market in phases over the next several years, first with the Long Island City property next year and then the third tower at its East Side campus in 2022. It will begin converting and leasing the Pfizer building after Pfizer's lease at that property expires in 2024, Marcus said.

"We've planned our pipeline to satisfy the industry's growth over time," Marcus said.