Reckson Proposes $86M Office Building in Westchester

The building would be Phase III of its 79-acre, six-building Reckson Executive Park, which currently totals 540,000 sf of existing office space. The new building, located at the border between New York and Greenwich, CT, would contain approximately 280,000 rental sf. Mark Weingarten, a partner in the White Plains law firm DelBello Donellan Weingarten Tartaglia Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP, says the construction cost of the project is approximately $86 million. Weingarten represented the Melville-based REIT at the IDA hearing.

"Westchester is getting very tight in terms of large blocks of space," Campofranco says. He characterizes Westchester as "a very healthy market" that has been able to absorb a significant amount of space givebacks in corporate downsizing or relocation programs in the recent past.

He says that Westchester has been on a recovery track for the past few years and Reckson expects the Westchester market to continue to strengthen in the short term. "We feel that this product coming on-line in the spring of 2008 would be the right timeline for this product to be here and available for what we are seeing in the market today--very large users, financial service firms and other major corporations that are looking to come in or diversify within the Tri-State region."

Reckson plans to undertake site work by this summer and the start of construction on the building prior to year's end. The final go-ahead for construction to begin is subject to a "couple of internal approvals." The building will be a draw to financial services firms that cannot find space in nearby Greenwich, where asking rents are in the $70 range, as well as New York City-based companies looking to decentralize their operations. Asking rents at Seven International Dr. will be in the mid $30s per sf.

Westchester County IDA chairman Vincent Rippa says the Reckson project pre-approval is conditioned on Reckson's marketing plan to bring new jobs into Westchester County. Campofranco tells GlobeSt.com that fears in the local brokerage market that MCI was planning to dump a significant amount of its space at the Reckson Executive Park on the market for lease are unfounded. He says that Reckson is in lease renewal negotiations with MCI, which currently occupies two buildings totaling 180,000 sf at the property. "We are in negotiations with them to renew a significant portion of that." He expects to "have clarity" on MCI's space intentions by April or May of this year. "We are confident that MCI is going to be remaining there." He adds that any space put on the market for lease would be leased up prior to the start of construction of the new building.