229 West 28th Street
Commercial, New York
In March 2014, Lexin acquired
229 West 28th Street (the “Property”), a 12-story, 160,000 square foot office building known as the Caxton building. The building is situated on the north side of West 28th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the heart of New York’s coveted Chelsea neighborhood. A Chelsea address conveys prestige and provides firms a valuable competitive advantage in attracting and retaining human capital. 229 West 28th Street benefits from:
Convenient access to major tech and creative firms in the vicinity as well as global corporations of Penn Plaza, which is located immediately to the north of the Property;
Location immediately to the east of the Hudson Yards, one of the largest private development projects in U.S. history, which attracted such major office tenants as Coach, L’Oréal, SAP and Time Warner;
Proximity to the dozens of quality residential projects recently built in the neighborhood, a diverse array of nearby trend-setting restaurants, popular nightclubs and world-class art galleries;
Walking distance to the popular 34th Street retail corridor and High Line Park.
The Property enjoys excellent transportation access. Penn Station, the nation’s busiest transportation hub, providing Amtrak service, commuter rail to Long Island and New Jersey, and access to six separate subway lines, is located just three blocks north of the Property. In addition, the Property is less than one block from the 28th Street/Seventh Avenue subway station, accessing convenient uptown/downtown transport on the 1 Train.
The building’s design offers a number of much sought after features:
- The Property sets itself apart from nearly all of its competition by providing four sides of open light and air. Neighboring buildings are extremely modest, with a two-story structure to the east and an open parking lot to the west. The Fashion Institute of Technology occupies the entire block front across 28th Street, with a series of significantly set back 8-story buildings protecting the Property’s south-facing light, air and views.
- The Property’s appeal is further enhanced by 12 foot ceilings, ideally suited to the open-plan layouts and tech-intensive uses of the Property’s diversified tenant base. Ground floor ceiling heights of 15 feet enhance the impact of the Property’s renovated lobby and add value to the asset’s retail space.
- Efficient and generous floor plates of 12,800 square feet are in high demand in the Midtown South marketplace, with comparable buildings in the vicinity recording a near-100% occupancy rate. The Property currently houses multi-floor office tenants, full floor tenants and floors with multiple tenants, underscoring the flexibility of the space. Internal stairwells in all of the multi-tenant spaces create effectively contiguous spaces of 25,000 square feet, a segment that is in particularly high demand.
- Caxton features two separate lobbies, each with access to all floors in the building. A “building within a building” could be created in the future, providing an anchor tenant with a private entrance, private lobby, and private elevators. Such a configuration would achieve premium rents due to the enhanced security, convenience, and prestige it provides. The Property’s double lobby configuration also presents a rare opportunity for a user-buyer to create a private headquarters facility at 229 West 28th Street.The Property’s diverse tenant base is highly reflective of Midtown South’s established creative character, with leading firms in the entertainment, broadcasting, printing, publishing, and social media, and financial services sectors and is anticipated to insulate the Property from a downturn in any given sector.
