WEF Takes 58K SF at Durst's 825 Third Avenue on a 15-Year Lease

The World Economic Forum has signed a 15-year lease for 58,131 square feet across the sixth through eighth floors of 825 Third Avenue, the Durst Organization’s Midtown East tower, according to Commercial Observer.

Why it matters

For a landlord, three full floors on a 15-year term is the kind of anchor that steadies a building’s income and its lender conversations. For brokers and tenant reps, the signal is that a large nonprofit is leaving 350 Madison Avenue next year for newer, flexible space, and Commercial Observer reported an asking rent of $83 per square foot. At that figure, the space would run about $4.8 million a year at asking, our arithmetic, not a disclosed contract number. Durst’s in-house team handled the landlord side; Newmark represented the Forum. Matthew Blake of the Forum said the space “will provide a flexible, modern workplace and convening hub for our colleagues, partners and communities.”

The numbers

City planning records (PLUTO) list 825 Third Avenue, tax lot BBL 1013247503, as a 40-story building completed in 1969 with 400,883 square feet, of which 396,053 is office. Against that, the 58,131-square-foot lease fills about 14.7% of the office area, by our arithmetic.

The tower also carries debt. The City Register shows a $100,000,000 mortgage on block 1324, lot 1, between DOLP 825 Properties II LLC and JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., dated April 4, 2022 and recorded April 14, 2022 (CRFN 2022000156929). An earlier $600,000,000 agreement recorded in 2021 with Citibank, N.A. also lists this lot among several Durst properties, which suggests the building sits inside a larger financing. We have not confirmed what balance is outstanding today.

What’s next

The Forum is expected to move next year. Watch whether Durst records a new financing or lease-related filing on the tower, and whether the vacancy left at 350 Madison draws a backfill tenant. For more Midtown ownership and debt coverage, see our report on Durst’s $60M One World Trade consolidated mortgage and our wider New York coverage.