After almost 60 years of residing at 235 East 42nd St., Pfizer is ready to move on. The leading pharmaceutical company is going to leave its global headquarters located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan and move to The Spiral, a planned office tower in Hudson Yards.
Pfizer World Headquarters, New York (Yardi Matrix)
The New York-based corporation has recently inked a 20-year lease for an 800,000-square-foot space within the skyscraper—equating to 28% of the building’s total square footage. Pfizer is going to occupy 15 of the tower’s 65 floors (floors 7 through 21), as well as part of the lobby level, with a dedicated entrance on 34th Street.
“Pfizer’s history in New York City began in 1849, and we are proud to continue our commitment to the city with our move to The Spiral in Manhattan. In relocating our headquarters, we sought to provide our colleagues a modern, state-of-the-art headquarters that would foster greater collaboration and innovation in a vibrant neighborhood in Manhattan,” Albert Bourla, COO at Pfizer, said in a statement.
The construction of the trophy high-rise located at 66 Hudson Blvd. is set to begin in June 2018 and is expected to take four years. According to an official release, Pfizer will begin relocating employees to its new corporate base upon the building’s completion, scheduled for 2022.
To prepare for this move, the pharma giant will sell its two properties at 219 East 42nd St. and 235 East 42nd St. to David Werner for $360 million, The New York Post reports. The company has been occupying the building at 235 East 42nd St., also known as the Pfizer World Headquarters, since 1960—per Yardi Matrix data. In addition to signing this lease agreement, the company has also made a $500,000 donation to the Hudson Guild, a community-based social services organization that aims to help people in need living in the Chelsea neighborhood.
A trophy office building on Manhattan’s Far West Side, the Class A+ skyscraper is going to feature a series of landscaped terraces and hanging gardens spiraling around the tower. The 2.8-million-square-foot high-rise will have a six-story base, which will include a lobby with above-standard ceiling height and 27,000 square feet of retail space.
The Spiral will occupy a full city block, stretching from West 34th to West 35th streets and from 10th Avenue to Hudson Park and Boulevard, with the main entrances located on Hudson Boulevard East and 10th Avenue. The tower will be visible from all of New York City’s five boroughs, as well as from Westchester County and New Jersey. A transit-oriented property, The Spiral will provide easy access to Penn Station, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the Midtown Ferry Terminal, Lincoln Tunnel and the West Side Highway.
Developer Tishman Speyer recently landed a $1.8 billion construction loan from Blackstone Mortgage Trust (BXMT), to complete the $3.6 billion Spiral project. The financing is the trust’s largest single-asset origination to date, and has strong credit metrics, including a loan-to-cost ratio of less than 50% and over $1.9 billion of equity to be invested in the project. Fried Frank represented BXMT in the financing deal, while Sullivan & Cromwell served as legal advisors for Tishman Speyer.
