The owner of First Stamford Place filed for an initial public offering of stock through a new corporate affiliate, with plans to spend at least some of the $1 billion in proceeds it is targeting to develop or purchase tristate area properties.
In its IPO filing, Empire State Realty Trust Inc. reveals ample information about its Fairfield County office buildings and its expectations for the market. Bank of America”™s Merrill Lynch subsidiary and Goldman Sachs Co. are underwriting the Empire State Realty Trust offering.
The company controls Malkin Properties, whose chairman emeritus Peter Malkin lives in Greenwich. In 1950, Lawrence Wien and Harry Helmsley began buying properties that would form the company”™s core portfolio, with Peter Malkin later leading the company before passing control to his son and current CEO Anthony Malkin. The company would later enter litigation with Greenwich residents Harry and Leona Helmsley to remove them as property managers.
In addition to the 800,000-square-foot First Stamford Place, Malkin Properties also owns the nearby Metro Center in Stamford, as well as the MerrittView office building at 383 Main Ave. in Norwalk overlooking the Merritt Parkway.
Malkin Properties has also proposed construction of a 340,000-square-foot building adjacent to Stamford”™s main train station. It does not indicate whether any capital will be used to jumpstart that project.
“We intend to develop this site when we deem the appropriate combination of market and other conditions are in place,” the company states in its IPO filing.
The company owns the Empire State Building and eight other towers in New York City, as well as two office buildings in Westchester County, N.Y. Its Fairfield and Westchester county buildings total 1.8 million square feet, making it among the larger landlords in the region.
In all, Empire State Realty Trust has about 80 office tenants in Fairfield County, according to its IPO filing not including about a half-dozen retail tenants that occupy some of the more than 20,000 square feet of space it has along Westport”™s Main Street shopping district.
Empire State Realty Trust lists Metro Center as its lone office property that was fully leased as of the time of its IPO filing, with First Stamford Place leased to 90 percent of capacity.
Thomson Reuters, which occupies space in both buildings, is Empire State Realty Trust”™s third-largest tenant across its portfolio with leases on more than 150,000 square feet ”“ the company”™s largest tenant is the New York City-based apparel and accessories company LF USA, an affiliate of Li & Fung Ltd., with Legg Mason second at more than 200,000 square feet, with the company occupying First Stamford Place. Odyssey Reinsurance occupies more than 100,000 square feet at First Stamford Place.
Empire State Realty Trust did not specify how much of its leased space is available for sublease from tenants. The company states its properties are generally leased at below-market prices, but hopes to increase rents as leases expire, moving smaller tenants within its portfolios to make larger blocks of adjoining space available to accommodate larger occupants.
