Vornado To Develop in Harlem for First Time in 30 Years

Vornado Realty Trust, owners of 22 million square feet of Manhattan office and commercial space, is planning to build Harlem's first office building in more than 30 years, a company executive said.

The 21-story tower, to be called "Harlem Park," will aim to attract financial service and media companies now in midtown Manhattan the president of Vornado's New York office division, David Greenbaum, said.

The economic boom that has pushed Manhattan office rents to record prices is making Harlem attractive for businesses seeking cheaper space. Harlem is in the midst of a residential real estate revival, with once-forlorn townhouses regularly selling for over $1 million.

Mr. Greenbaum said the 640,000-square-foot tower Vornado plans at 125th Street and Park Avenue, "screams to be an office site." It is directly adjacent to the first Manhattan stop on the MetroNorth commuter rail line that brings finance workers from Westchester and Connecticut suburbs to Midtown's Grand Center Terminal.

Community activists, city planners and real estate developers are battling over plans to rezone 125th Street, Harlem's main commercial corridor, where many businesses are still struggling to survive.

Offices ought to be part of any economic revival in Harlem, Mr. Greenbaum said. He spoke yesterday in Harlem at a conference on the neighborhood's future, sponsored by the Urban Land Institute, a Washington-based research organization of planners and developers.

Lower land costs and government incentives to entice office users to the site would let Vornado offer rents less than half the $100 a square-foot rate that new Midtown offices command, Mr. Greenbaum said.

Rents for Class A office space in Midtown Manhattan rose 33% to an average of $82.44 a foot annually, in the 12 months through March, according to real estate brokers Colliers ABR.

"The traditional users of Harlem, which are generally the government, not-for profits, [and] educational tenants" have approached Vornado, he said.

Mr. Greenbaum said he wants to bring private-sector tenants into the building. "We are talking to a number of major institutions, financial service companies, entertainment companies, all of whom have expressed an interest in the project."

The building is due to be completed in 2009, and about 11% of the space has already been leased, according to a listing for the project on CoStar Group Inc.'s real estate data service.

Mr. Greenbaum presented attendees with a rendering for a stack of interlocking glass cubes designed by the architectural firm Stanke Hayden Connell.