McKinsey & Co. has agreed to lease office space in Stamford”™s Harbor Point development, according to multiple real estate brokers, giving landlord Building & Land Technology a marquee tenant as BLT finishes construction on its Harbor Point Square multi-tenant office buildings.
Queried on its lease plans earlier this year by the Fairfield County Business Journal, including whether Harbor Point might be a destination, McKinsey spokeswoman Yolande Daeninck declined comment.
In a press release, Building and Land Technology confirmed it inked a 10-year lease at 2 Harbor Point Square for 24,000 square feet of space, while declining to name the tenant in advance of the company”™s occupation of the offices later this year.
Earlier this year, Greenwich-based Silver Point Capital was rumored to have been considering BLT”™s Harbor Point development for a major lease; brokers say they are uncertain of the hedge fund”™s plans at present.
The Harbor Point project is to include 4,000 residential units, office buildings, a hotel, and more than 11 acres of parks and public space, along with a Fairway supermarket slated to open in October. BLT has kept up construction even as other Fairfield County projects have faltered amid the credit crunch, though some bankers say they expect a turnaround soon.
“Particularly for commercial real estate ”“ office buildings with really solid tenants ”“ we”™ve seen a good increase all of this year,” said Brian Dreyer, senior executive vice president of commercial lending for Bridgeport-based People”™s United Financial Inc., in a July conference call with investment analysts. “It”™s been remarkable.”
Among the most-highly regarded recruiters among MBA graduates, McKinsey has a office in Stamford currently located at 3 Landmark Square. If small compared with the consultant”™s New York City office, McKinsey has touted its Stamford locale as a draw for professionals seeking easy access to both urban and suburban living. It is one of just three U.S. McKinsey offices not located in a major city, the others being in Florham Park, N.J., and in Palo Alto, Calif.
Of the major consulting and business services firms, Deloitte dominates Fairfield County with some 700 workers, most of them in Wilton, but some in a BLT building at 333 Ludlow Place in Stamford, where Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. recently completed a lease for a new corporate headquarters.
Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers also maintain Stamford offices, as do more specialized companies like Towers Watson, which focuses on assisting companies with human resources issues.
As much as any consulting company, McKinsey has served as a launch pad into the executive ranks of corporations, with several based in Fairfield County boasting McKinsey alumni. Those executives include Gene Hall, CEO of Gartner Inc., one of the largest employers in Stamford where it is based.
McKinsey”™s reputation is arguably beclouded in the tri-state area after a Palo Alto-based partner came under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission in its probe of insider trading engineered by the New York City-based hedge fund Galleon Group.
Separately, in March McKinsey won the dismissal of a lawsuit against it by a Connecticut widower, who claimed the consultancy provided Allstate Insurance a roadmap to minimizing claim payments. Allstate formally responded to the suit in April, denying any improper conduct; the parties scheduled a settlement conference last week.
For the most part, however, McKinsey has maintained among the most sterling reputations in the industry ”“ including in the area of humanitarian efforts, in which it has contributed to recovery efforts in Haiti following this year”™s earthquake; and in the Pacific Rim following the tsunami that devastated Indonesia and other countries.
