Douglas Durst's the Durst Organization has just obtained a new tenant for its 1133 Sixth Avenue Building: ING Financial Holdings Corp. is in the works to relocate its New York offices out of Paramount's 1325 Sixth Avenue.
Occupying floors 7 through 10, ING has just signed a 10-year lease for 132,400 square feet - which is approximately as large as its office space a few blocks north of the same street.
As it turns out, ING will also have new neighbors, as pending leases fill out the rest of the space. The New York Post reports:
"Durst in-house leasing honcho Rocco Romeo, who acted for the landlord with colleague Tom Bow, also said new leases for 100,000 square feet will fill the 1.1 million-square-foot tower."
In addition, Romeo noted that asking price for rent at 1133 Sixth Avenue range between the low $70s to the low $90s per square foot.
As for the strong demand for the building's space, Romeo credits the attraction to the multi-million dollar investments made over the last few years, which included a new lobby and plaza.
The leasing deal had only recently been closed, although talks were already in place last year. ING had chosen a CBRE team - including vice chairman Robert Stillman and Michael Geoghegan - to represent the company.
The building has also been the subject of controversy: Amazon had "allegedly violated an exclusive-negotiating period provision" with the Durst Organization, when the tech giant was looking into a 310,000 square foot lease.
Durst spent $1.3 million to redesign floors and allowed a tenant to move out of the building earlier, all in preparation for Amazon's expected move.
However, Amazon made the decision to relocate to Vornado's 7 West 34th Street the same time Jeff Bezos' company was supposedly negotiating only with Durst in 2014.
1133 Sixth Avenue will also be the new home of the Steinway piano showroom, which left its longtime headquarters on West 57th Street for the retail space available at the tower's West 43rd Street corner.
The Steinway piano showroom is temporarily located at Durst's 1155 Sixth Avenue while the tower is awaiting completion.