When Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty bought 281 Park Ave. So. last year for $50 million, it didn’t plan for the six-story building to fade into the background of the commercially strong but architecturally monotonous boulevard.
Rosen wanted the landmarked jewel at East 22nd Street, much smaller than neighboring office buildings, precisely for its unique features that would draw a company with a taste for historic ambience.
The vacant late-19th century structure looks nothing like anything else on Park Avenue South.
Characterized by the Landmarks Preservation Commission as inspired by a medieval Flemish guild hall, it’s being marketed by a JLL team led by Mitchell Konsker and Alexander Chudnoff and including Adam Haber and Harley Dalton.
Rosen aims to land a single tenant for its total 45,000 square feet, of which 20,000 could be used for retail, said RFR President Gregg Popkin.
The asking rent is $125 a square foot for the entire building, Popkin said.
That doesn’t strike us as being as high as it might sound in relation to the district’s average class-A office space “ask” of $79.12 per square foot, as cited by Cushman & Wakefield — because the retail space might be twice the price if offered separately.
The exterior of 281 Park Ave. So. was designated in 1979 by the landmarks commission, which this past March approved RFR’s proposal to alter its storefronts, expand retail space to the second floor and create a new lobby-entrance on East 22d Street.
The romantically detailed façade is familiar to passersby who may wonder how it got there.
But few have seen inside the former headquarters of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, which owned the building for 51 years.
A stroll through its airy confines last week revealed atmospheric elements with a distinct ecclesiastical feel — vaulted 20-foot-high ceilings, stained-glass detailing, and mullioned, arched and gabled windows.
Only the windows, which are considered part of the exterior, enjoy landmark protection.
But it’s unlikely a tenant paying a premium for a unique space wouldn’t want to keep most of the features that make it special.
Compact 6,700-square-foot floors are flooded with light, thanks to the avenue’s width and the large window sizes. “It is timeless, and there’s nothing else like it on the market,” Konsker said.
RFR is “white-boxing” the interior — i.e., whitewashing all the space and installing baseline flooring and temporary lighting — to make it ready for use by year’s end.
Park Avenue South belongs to the rock-solid Midtown South submarket, where vacancies barely exceed 6 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s second-quarter data.
The once dull blocks between Union Square and East 32d Street, which marks the divide between Park Avenue South and Park Avenue, now teem with hip restaurants such as Upland, Florian Café and the Little Beet Table, as well as the new Gansevoort Hotel.
Although the area has drawn many media, creative and tech firms — among them, Digitas at RFR’s 345 Park Ave. So. — Popkin believes, “We’ll also be seeing a significant financial presence coming.”