Brookfield Takes NYMEX Building for $200M

NEW YORK CITY-Following earlier reports that a deal was in the offing, Brookfield Office Properties Inc. has made it officials, announcing on Tuesday that it had acquired the New York Mercantile Exchange's headquarters building at One North End Ave. in Lower Manhattan. BPO paid $200 million to acquire the 15-story asset from CME Group, and plans to integrate it into the adjacent Brookfield Place, the eight-million-square-foot mixed-use complex formerly known as the World Financial Center.

“One North End Avenue has always unofficially been a part of Brookfield Place and the opportunity to acquire and integrate the property was compelling for us as we continue our $250-million repositioning program,” says Dennis Friedrich, BPO's CEO. “One North End is a highly specified office/trading building featuring a great waterfront location and which further benefits from the accelerating vitality in the area, including the introduction of new restaurants from celebrated chefs and luxury brand retail.”

Concurrent with the closing, NYMEX has entered into a 24-month lease for approximately 449,000 square feet of the property's office space. After 24 months, NYMEX will consolidate its space into 222,000 square feet on floors 2-8 of for a subsequent 13 years. Brookfield will then lease out the 322,000 square feet of office space at the top of the building, which includes a signature rooftop terrace overlooking the Statue of Liberty and North Cove Marina.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, One North End dates from 1996, and reportedly was the city's first LEED EB certified building. Among its distinctive features are a pair of 35,000-square-foot, column-free open outcry trading floors with 37-foot-high ceilings. BPO plans to renovate one of the spaces to create a modern double-height galleried trading floor alongside the additional infill of a slab to create offices.

“CME Group remains committed to our floor-based membership and open outcry trading services in New York, which continue to serve our customers well,” says Kevin Lennon, managing director real estate at CME Group.  “With this sale, we will continue to update our New York offices to reflect the innovation and quality of our CME Group offices around the world.”

A Newmark Grubb Knight Frank team of James Kuhn, Jennifer Schwartzman and Neil Goldmacher brokered the transaction in partnership with principal Holly Duran and associate Jeff Mulder of Holly Duran Real Estate Partners LLC, CME's global real estate advisor since 1980.