The Olayan Group is closing in on an impressive feat in the post-pandemic Manhattan office market: full occupancy.
Global financial services firm Aquarian Holdings signed a lease for 75,000 square feet at 550 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, the New York Post reported. Aquarian will occupy the building’s three-level penthouse.
Details of the lease — length, asking rent, who brokered the deal — were not disclosed. Aquarian will be relocating from 40 10th Avenue.
With the deal, the property is roughly 96 percent leased. The availability at the property is on the 22nd and 34th floors. There’s also a retail corner on the building’s south end that remains unclaimed.
Other tenants at the 41-story, 800,000-square-foot Midtown building between East 55th and East 56th streets include global insurance giant Chubb Limited, which has a 10-floor, 240,000-square-foot lease; luxury brand Hermès, which has a 72,000-square-foot headquarters lease; advisory firm Junto Capital, which occupies 25,000 square feet; and Clayton Dubilier & Rice, a private investment advisory firm that agreed to take 144,000 square feet two years ago.
Olayan recently renovated the building in partnership with Scott Rechler’s RXR, spending $300 million to redesign the lower floors, the lobby and to add retail windows to the pink facade. Olayan purchased the building in 2016 for $1.4 million.
Tenants signed deals in Manhattan for 3.38 million square feet in April, up 23 percent year-over-year, according to a Colliers report. Leasing volume declined from the prior month, but the availability rate tightened to 15.7 percent, the lowest in more than four years.
Leasing volume is on track to reach 44.3 million square feet, the highest since 2000.
“The healthy demand and tightening supply that we’ve seen over the last several quarters need to continue in order for the market to finally reach recovery,” said Colliers’ Franklin Wallach.
— Holden Walter-Warner