The law firm Jackson Lewis has leased two office floors at 666 Third Avenue, a space nearly 40,000 square feet in size.
The firm will relocate from lower Manhattan, where it currently has its offices on the 39th floor of the roughly 1 million square foot tower 59 Maiden Lane.
666 Third Avenue abuts the Chrysler Building and was developed to have a retail base that interconnects with its landmark neighbor. Called the Chrysler East Building, 666 Third has drawn fire from architectural critics since it was built in the early 1950s for the way its glass façade and boxy profile seem to bear little relation to the classic art deco style of the Chrysler Building.
When the real estate investment and management firm Tishman Speyer purchased the two buildings in the late 1990s the firm significantly renovated each, improving Chrysler East by installing a new façade, upgrading its interior spaces and systems and building the eye catching triangular glass plaza and exterior waterfall that links the two properties.
Tishman Speyer branded the two buildings together, designating them the Chrysler Complex.
Jackson Lewis, which specializes in labor and workplace law, signed a deal for the entire 29th and 30th floors in 666 Third Avenue, which is 32 stories tall and about 770,000 square feet in size. The Chrysler Building is nearly 1.3 millions square feet and at 77 stories, the third tallest skyscraper in the city behind the Empire State Building and the Bank of America Tower.
Although office space in lower Manhattan comes at a significant discount to midtown, activity has nonetheless been brisker for the latter because of the prevailing sense that rental rates have bottomed and that prime midtown space can be had at a relative discount.
Mark Weiss, an executive at the commercial leasing brokerage firm Newmark Knight Frank, represented Jackson Lewis in the deal. Gregory Conen, an in house leasing broker at Tishman Speyer, handled the transaction for the landlord.