140 E. 45th St./Photo courtesy of Lee & Associates NYC

NEW YORK CITY—Stewart Title Insurance Company has signed two new leases, moving two of its offices to two new locations—all within Midtown East.

In February 2019, the real estate services company will be moving its commercial services and direct operations group from the Durst Organization's 825 Third Ave. to 16,350 square feet at Rockwood Capital's Two Grand Central Tower, located at 140 E. 45th St. They will occupy the entire 33rd floor in their new office space. Other tenants in the building include GuardHill Financial, Greenlight Capital and Alliant Insurance.

Stewart will relocate its agency and legal groups from the ULM Holding Corp.'s 300 E. 42nd St., to 5,267 square feet at Empire State Realty Trust's One Grand Central Place at 60 E. 42nd St. They will move in, leasing part of the 12th floor in November 2018. Gerson Lerman Group, Cofinance Group SA, Haver Analytics, Lightkeeper LLC and Sinclair Corporation are also tenants in the building.

60 East 42nd St./ Photo courtesy: Lee & Associates NYC

The title insurance company characterizes their moves as part of their strategic relocation and growth strategy in the New York area. The building asking rents were not provided but both leases are for 10-year terms.

For One Grand Central Place, Lee & Associates' Kenneth Salzman in New York City represented Stewart. The landlord, Empire State Realty Trust, was represented in-house by Julie Christiano.

With the Two Grand Central Tower lease, Lee & Associates' Robert LaCoure from the Houston office represented Stewart. The landlord, Rockwood Capital, was represented by Neil King of CBRE.

“The Lee team negotiated two transactions that met Stewart Title's diverse requirements and lease-up strategy to meet the company's growing needs,” says Salzman. “The space will allow them to implement new workforce standards and provide dedicated areas for both their sales and legal compliance departments.”

Matthew Morris, CEO, Stewart Information Services Corporation says, “These offices will complement Stewart's portfolio of offices from the east to the west that supports the Stewart culture and provides spaces in which our clients look forward to doing business.”

In other news, Lee & Associates NYC expanded its services with the recent addition of a 10-person leasing and sales team. Gregory Gang, Catherine O'Toole and Corey Abdo have been hired all as executive managing directors and principals. They are leading a team of brokers, Milana Kakuriyeva, Stephanie Moore, David Scher, Stephen Tarter, David Toran, Ari Waldman and Meagan O'Toole-Raneri. The group comes to Lee from Advisors Commercial Real Estate and will be working throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. A Lee NYC press release states that the new hires were on the number two producer team nationwide at Coldwell Banker Commercial Advisors and that Gang, O'Toole and Abdo were in the top 10 producers across the country.

Highlights of their work include relocating the headquarters of David Donahue to the entire 32nd floor amounting to 13,735 square feet at 1407 Broadway, and TouchBistro to the 27th floor of the same building. They leased two floors at 256 W. 36th St. for iLoftSpace, and negotiated a 15,000 square-foot lease at 359 Broadway for the haunted house Blood Manor. The team also represented Fundera in an expansion to 20,000 square feet at 123 William St.

“The group's business is equally divided between agency assignments and tenant representation,” says Joel Herskowitz, COO of Lee NYC. “This diverse group of individuals knows the New York City commercial real estate market inside and out and we're very excited to witness all they will accomplish at Lee & Associates.”

Instant Insights /

Stewart Title Insurance Expands Midtown East Office Footprint

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