The developers of Essex Crossing are beginning a big marketing push to lease 350,000 square feet of office space located in two buildings on Delancey Street.
Cushman & Wakefield will serve as brokers for the space, which is set to debut in the year 2020, as part of the large residential/commercial project in the former Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. It will be the first significant block of office space to hit the market on he Lower East Side. For many years, local business leaders have lobbied for commercial development of this type as a way of creating daytime foot traffic for struggling retail businesses.
In September, Delancey Street Associates, the team developing Essex Crossing, released the first renderings of buildings planned in the second phase of their project. The buildings on site 3 and 4 will will include 175,000 square feet of office space each, in addition to apartments on the upper floors and retail below.
In a statement, Charles Bendit of Taconic Investment Partners said, “Today’s most cutting-edge companies – from a range of industries – are looking for ways to differentiate themselves and appeal to a millennial workforce. Essex Crossing’s location, amenities and vibe will make its office space an ideal place for those firms to do something no others have: plant their flag on the LES.”
Josh Kuriloff of Cushman & Wakefield added, “Top firms are increasingly drawn to mixed-use urban campuses because they offer not just new Class A space, but an array of amenities outside the office walls.” Essex Crossing will include a three block-long subterranean shopping pavilion called the Market Line, an expanded Essex Street Market, a medical center run by NYU Langone, a 14-screen movie theater and a new home for the International Center of Photography, among other amenities. The project, said Kuriloff, is, “strategically suited to welcome office tenants looking to make their mark in the city and give them an upper hand in today’s highly competitive recruitment battle.”
The offices will be located between Delancey Street and Broome Street, on two sites just to the west of Clinton Street. They will boast private outdoor terraces. The developers are touting easy access to major subway lines and the Williamsburg Bridge, as well as 900 new hotels rooms in the area and 3700 new apartments set for completion in the next few years.
In a story published today, the Wall Street Journal looked at whether Essex Crossing could lead more companies to look at establishing a presence on the Lower East Side:
While the amount of office space is small compared with the commercial skyscrapers of more than a million square feet rising on Manhattan’s far West Side and in the World Trade Center campus, the addition could spur the creation of new office space in a neighborhood where virtually none on this level and scale had existed previously, real-estate executives said. Many point to new office developments sprouting around the once-industrial Meatpacking District as a precedent. “An area like this is not an office area, but if this becomes successful, then others will create opportunities there to develop office space,” said David Falk, president of the New York Tri-State region for real-estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank.
Essex Crossing is a collaboration among Taconic Investment Partners, BFC Partners and L+M Development Partners. The first phase of the project will be finished next year.
