Havas Health Inks 254K SF Expansion At 200 Madison

Havas Health is adding a healthy dose of office space.

The global communications firm inked a 254,000-square-foot extension and expansion at 200 Madison Avenue, the Midtown South tower owned by George Comfort & Sons, Loeb Partners Realty and Jamestown. The deal includes a 65,000-square-foot expansion across and a 15-year extension of its current 189,00-square foot space. Havas will occupy five floors of the 26-story tower, according to a statement from the landlord.

George Comfort & Sons’ Peter Duncan and Alexander Bermingham represented the landlord in-house. Newmark’s David Falk and Jason Greenstein represented Havas in the lease, which was first reported by Commercial Observer. Asking rents in the building are $70 to $75 per square foot.

The landlord recently completed an expansive renovation of the tower’s Madison Avenue entrance and lobby. It is also building an 11,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor amenity center on the tower’s tenth floor.  

Built in 1926, the 750,000-square-foot Midtown South tower is a few blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station. Havas has been a tenant in the building for almost three decades. Other office tenants include architecture firm Spectorgroup and law firm BraunHagey & Borden. Fitness brand TMPL and furniture store Roche Bobois occupy ground-floor retail space.

The expansion comes as Midtown South’s office market continues to tighten. Leasing volume reached 5.05 million square feet in the second quarter, the submarket’s strongest quarterly total since the end of 2001, according to Colliers. Availability shrank to 12.7 percent, down from 13.4 percent in the first quarter, marking the eighth consecutive quarter in which availability either tightened or held steady. 

The tightening continued into July, when Midtown South accounted for nearly half of Manhattan’s leasing activity with 1.90 million square feet of deals and availability in the tech-heavy submarket fell further to 12.2 percent.

Midtown South’s average asking rent slipped 1.1 percent in the second quarter to $79.41 per square foot, but was still up 2.4 percent year-over-year.

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