Times Square’s Elmo hordes and hustlers showed no sign of running for cover on Monday, despite City Hall’s campaign to tame the district’s increasingly anarchic street scene.
Although supposedly being restricted to “designated activity zones,” a fuzzy, well-worn red Elmo and Mickey Mouse characters vied for tourists’ money on the sidewalk in front of 5 Times Square — home to Ernst & Young, which is considering getting out of Dodge.
A source says that E&Y, which was reported to be hunting for space downtown as well as moving some offices across the Hudson to Hoboken, NJ, might leave its 5 Times Square headquarters “entirely.”
E&Y occupies 1 million square feet at the 42nd Street tower with a vertical red sign over Seventh Avenue.
Its lease runs until 2022.
We strolled through the tourist-clogged “Bowtie” after we listened to CBRE global brokerage chief Stephen B. Siegel say on cable TV’s “Stoler Report” last week, “Times Square is going to have an issue.”
Siegel told host Michael Stoler he’d compare the Times Square situation to that of Sixth Avenue, where new tenants will likely replace some that are leaving — “except that the environment is . . . becoming a little honky tonky, [with] Cookie Monster and these other characters.
“There are tenants of mine who’ve said, ‘I don’t want to look there,’” Siegel said.
Siegel later told Realty Check, “Times Square is seedier again — not the way it used to be [with violent crime], but with street characters, crowds and lighting.”
On Monday, predatory hawkers tried thrusting CDs at us — which they’d demand we pay for had we taken them in our hands.
Were Ernst & Young to leave, it would join Condé Nast, which ankled 4 Times Square in 2014 for 1 World Trade Center, and law firm Skadden Arps, which is to leave the tower for Brookfield’s rising 1 Manhattan West in 2020.
Meanwhile, we’re told, Ann Taylor is exploring options for its corporate offices once its 400,000-square-foot lease expires in a few years at 7 Times Square. It doesn’t necessarily mean Ann Taylor wants out. Companies routinely check out other locations. But it’s another indication of market unease at the “Crossroads of the World.”
Times Square has several older office towers as well — most notably SL Green’s 1515 Broadway between 44th and 45th streets, where Viacom is comfortably locked into 1.3 million square feet through 2031.
But the quartet of newer towers at 42nd Street, which defined the “new” Times Square driven by state and city subsidies in the 1990s, might be vulnerable.
At Rudin Management’s 3 Times Square, Thomson Reuters seems likely to remain in its roughly 400,000 square feet.
At the Durst Organization’s 4 Times Square, we reported last week that ICAP signed for 82,440 square feet with a 41,221-square-foot expansion option.
The deal, although likely the first of more to follow a recent $100 million tower upgrade, still leaves the bulk of Condé’s 817,000 square feet up for grabs.
GQ Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson, after moving downtown, termed the streets around 4 Times Square a “clown circus” which he couldn’t leave “fast enough.”
Connecticut real estate development firm Building and Land Technology has landed a big name from New York: Leslie Whatley, a former head of global real estate for JPMorgan Chase and, later, Morgan Stanley.
Whatley will oversee Stamford-based BLT’s office leasing and management. She stepped down in July as EVP of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s controversial Start-UP NY, which aims to lure companies to the state with tax breaks and other incentives.
BLT is one of Connecticut’s largest commercial and residential landlords. Its holdings include headquarters of Gen Re, Xerox and Starwood Hotels and Resorts.
The Actors Fund of America has taken a bigger role at 729 Seventh Ave.
The service organization for show business professionals is growing from 22,400 to 33,600 square feet at the Himmel + Meringoff property.
The Fund is among several entertainment industry tenants at the building including Playbill and the Broadway League. Asking rents are in the mid-$60s.
The latest eatery coming to Harlem’s “restaurant row” is Le Caméléon at 2220 Frederick Douglass Blvd. near 119th Street. The 900 square-foot lease, for about $110 per square foot, was arranged by Douglas Elliman’s Faith Hope Consolo and Arthur Maglio.
Corcoran Group consulted for the tenant. The new French bistro replaces a bodega.