545 Madison Ave

[kliq6]

LCOR To Gut 545 Madison Ave.
By Katie Hinderer

NEW YORK CITY-LCOR is looking to cash in on the boutique office market in the Plaza District. The company just signed a 75-year lease for 545 Madison Ave. and plans to redevelop the entire building.
Located at 55 Street and Madison Avenue, the 17-story, 140,000 sf building is currently 100% vacant. Redevelopment of the property will basically replace everything but the basic steel structure, according to a company statement. The electrical and mechanical systems will be updated, new elevators placed in the building; a new glass wall façade will replace the current one. Architecture company Moed de Armas & Shannon is in charge of the redevelopment effort.

“We are transforming this structure into a fully contemporary class A office building, said David Sigman, LCOR senior vice president, in a statement. “A completely modernized 545 Madison Ave. will meet demand for boutique space in a prime Midtown location, an offering not readily available in this part of Manhattan.”

Construction is expected to commence in early 2007. The first tenants are projected to be able to move into the space during the Spring of 2008. Jones Lang LaSalle’s Peter Riguardi, Frank Doyle and Lisa Keill will be in charge of the building’s leases.

Boutique office owners fill a specific niche in the Plaza District – a fact driving the market. Late last month, as reported by GlobeSt.com, Equity Office Properties signed the last of 15 leases filling its boutique office at 717 Fifth Ave. also near the former Plaza Hotel.

[Deimos]

wow... that building needed it badly, but i can't believe how fast the building was vacated. I had that building in my sales territory until i left my last company in June. There were no indications from my customers at that time that something like this was even in the works! It's good to see ugly/outdated buildings getting updated like this... the elevators sucked (slow, dark) The floors were dingy... nothing about the building was high end.

[jeffpark]

LCOR Signs 75-Year Lease for 545 Madison Avenue in New York City
Will Undertake Full-Scale Redevelopment of Vacant 17-Story Office Building
NEW YORK, N.Y. (November 7, 2006) — LCOR, the national real estate development and investment company, has signed a 75-year ground lease for 545 Madison Avenue, and will soon commence full-scale redevelopment of the 17-story office building.
The property is located at the corner of 55th Street and Madison Avenue in the Plaza District, one of Manhattan’s most coveted business venues. Presently vacant, the site totals 140,000 square feet in rentable commercial space, with floor plates ranging from 4,900 to 9,300 square feet in size. The ground floor and cellar hold nearly 10,000 square feet of retail space.
Comprehensive site redevelopment will include a gut rehabilitation, the replacement of the existing façade with a state-of-the-art glass curtain wall recladding, and the installation of new, state-of-the-art electrical and mechanical systems and elevators.
“We are transforming this structure into a fully contemporary, Class A office building," said David A. Sigman, senior vice president of LCOR. "A completely modernized 545 Madison Avenue will meet demand for boutique space in a prime Midtown location, an offering not readily available in this part of Manhattan."
Because tenant leases had expired at the end of September, the building is presently unoccupied, allowing LCOR to create an entirely new structure working outward from the building's concrete and steel framework.
"Without having to work around occupied space, we have the rare opportunity to recreate a Manhattan office building from scratch," said Sigman. "Because the building is vacant, LCOR can proceed according to a natural construction cycle to completely redevelop 545 Madison as a first-rate, 21st-century office building that will appeal to a solid tenant roster of boutique firms.”
Ground lease holders include LCOR, Lehman Brothers and BlackRock, who together entered into the new lease with Marx Realty and Improvement Company. Bill Shanahan and John Powers of CBRE acted as the owner’s broker.
LCOR is tapping the New York City architecture firm of Moed de Armas & Shannon to carry out the redevelopment initiative. With construction expected to begin in early 2007, tenancy is anticipated in the spring of 2008.
Peter Riguardi, Frank Doyle and Lisa Keill of Jones Lang LaSalle will serve as leasing agents for the building's commercial component. Leasing efforts are expected to focus on such small-space users as boutique financial services companies and law firms.
Constructed in 1955, 545 Madison Avenue features 50 feet of frontage on Madison Avenue and 125 feet along East 55th Street.
LCOR is a national real estate development, investment and asset management company that specializes in multifamily, commercial and mixed-use development, public/private development and transit-oriented development. With projects throughout the United States, LCOR has more than $8 billion in developments completed, under construction or in pre-development. LCOR has developed more than 16 million square feet of commercial space nationally. The firm developed the $1.4-billion Terminal 4 at JFK International Airport.

[antinimby]

Redevelopment of the property will basically replace everything but the basic steel structure,Why not just tear it all down and start from scratch?

Besides, 170K is very small as Midtown office towers go - have they run out of air rights?

Any photos of how ugly it is now?

[jeffpark]

its 140,000 sf, and NOT "170,000 sf
but its more like 117,000 sf

http://www.costar.com/freesearch/imageviewer/GetImage.aspx?id=5728598467F345A027DBB4A80D723A80&ShowNoImageCell=false
http://www.costar.com/freesearch/imageviewer/GetImage.aspx?id=5728598467F345A027DBB4A80D723A80&ShowNoImageCell=false
from mrofficespace.com
http://www.mrofficespace.com/ob/pix//mh/md0297.jpg

[antinimby]

117K?

That's even worst, but hey, the building doesn't look as bad as someone had said.

[jeffpark]

Why not just tear it all down and start from scratch?

Besides, 170K is very small as Midtown office towers go - have they run out of air rights?

Any photos of how ugly it is now?

whats the point of "tear it all down and start from scratch"
if there is no room to make the Floor Plates-plot larger the only way to make it larger is adding more floors to the hight and this they can accomplish the way they are planing it now

[londonlawyer]

There's a photo in the Commercial Real Estate section of the 4-25-07 Post which depicts what this will look like. It's nice.

[kz1000ps]

Not the most focused shot, but you get the idea.. 6/16

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/8808/img5012jz1.jpg