Macquarie Opens 250 KSF Manhattan Office

Macquarie Group has opened its new 250,000-square-foot office at 660 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan’s Plaza District.

The global financial services company has relocated its New York City office at Brookfield Properties’ 1.5 million square foot recently renovated building, adding the logo to the city skyline for the first time.

Macquarie designed the space with architectural firm Architecture Plus Information. The lease was initially signed in 2022, with the company being the first tenant at the high-rise. Additionally, the deal marks 30 years for the firm’s operations in the U.S.

Macquarie Group occupies seven floors at 660 Fifth Avenue. The new workplace features floor-to-ceiling windows, meeting and event rooms, lounges and cafe spaces, access to 25,000 square feet of terrace gardens and an open atrium staircase that connects all floors.

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Brookfield Properties has been the owner of the 39-story building since 2018. The company purchased the majority of ownership interest in the asset for $1.4 billion from Kushner Cos., according to CommercialEdge.

A revamped office tower in Manhattan

Completed in 1957, the mid-century office building includes floorplates between 24,000 square feet and 78,000 square feet, 20 passenger elevators, covered parking spots and 84,855 square feet of first floor and second floor retail spaces.

The owner implemented a $400 million redevelopment project with Kohn Pedersen Fox as architect, resulting in a new facade with 11 by 19-foot single-pane glass units, the largest ones to be used on an office redevelopment in the city. Additional upgrades include a new lobby and elevators, as well as infrastructure services.

The owner is targeting a LEED Gold certification for the base building and interior workplace, while the tower already received a WELL Health-Safety rate in 2022. The property was selected as one of the six inaugural commercial spaces for New York state’s Empire Building Challenge, a program for redesign approaches that focuses on reaching low-carbon retrofits for the city’s high-rise buildings.

The building is close to multiple bus and subway stations and 6 miles from the Financial District. LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport are 10 and 16 miles away, respectively.

Corporate relocations

Manhattan’s office vacancy rate stood at 16.6 percent as of August, marking an 80-basis-point drop year-over-year, according to the latest CommercialEdge office report. The rate was below the 19.4 percent national figure, while asking rates stood at $68.56 per square foot, the highest in the Northeast region.

Recent significant corporate relocations in Manhattan include IBM’s new 270,000-square-foot flagship office. The company signed the 16-year deal in 2022 at One Madison Avenue, a 1.4 million-square-foot office building owned by SL Green. The tenant moved all its New York departments at the property, which will host more than 2,000 of its employees.

In May, HSBC opened its 265,000-square-foot headquarters at The Spiral at Hudson Yards. The bank downsized from a 548,000-square-foot office and will now occupy three floors for the next 20 years at Tishman Speyer’s 66-story tower.

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