Commercial Klutch: March Edition

The straight dope from our masked commercial correspondent…

For the moment, office space prices in the Court/Montague market seems to be settling in. More tenants are in the market in recent weeks, leading to deals in the $28 to $32 range for better buildings (absent very small size or major views) and in the $25 range in lesser buildings.

Tenant survival is the concern in today’s economy. Numerous DUMBO tenants are trying to sublet spaces or outright abandoning ship. Government-funded social service tenants, a downtown Brooklyn staple, are under great financial pressure as the City and State delay their already overdue service reimbursement payments to these tenants.

470 Vanderbilt Avenue, now called The Brooklyn Office Exchange, debuts this month with a new website. We hear they have a couple of deals working, too. The largest privately-owned substantially vacant building in Brooklyn, the BOX will take some time to lease up.

We plead with the MTA and the City of New York to make most of 370 Jay Street (above), the eyesore over the Jay St./Borough Hall A, C & F train station, available to small tenants. The property, as narrow as 80 feet in some sections, would make a superb small business center. Designed and built by New York State in a government modernist style, the building should put out a Request for Proposals at a low price and find a good developer to manage the rehab and leasing. As long as the RFP is not done as poorly and unimaginatively as the ones for Sunset Park’s Federal Building # 2 and Dumbo’s Empire Stores…