CBRE is setting up a new headquarters for its global financial business in Manhattan’s Lever House on Park Avenue, as the world's largest commercial real estate services firm increases its presence in New York City's capital markets and expands its investment management business.
The company said it is leasing 64,350 square feet of contiguous space on six floors at Lever House at 390 Park Ave. between East 53rd and 54th streets, about 10 blocks north of CBRE’s New York home at 200 Park Ave. CBRE also said its global corporate headquarters will remain in Dallas.
Establishing a new headquarters for its financial group in Manhattan reflects CBRE's "increasing financial presence in New York, the growth of its investment management business and the company’s greater intertwinement with the public and private capital markets through its mergers-and-acquisition activity and co-investments in real estate and other assets," the company said in a statement.
It's one sign of how the firm has been diversifying its services beyond traditional commercial property transactions. The company, with operations that include the world's biggest commercial property brokerage, said this week it completed combining its project management business with its majority-owned Turner & Townsend subsidiary in the United Kingdom.
CBRE plans to occupy four floors of the Lever House space starting in the fourth quarter, while the remaining two floors are used as an Industrious flexible workspace in what the two companies billed as a “unique operating model” in a “managed fixed-flex lease.” Flexible space provider Industrious is set to manage the design, buildout, operations and experience of CBRE-occupied space as well as operate the adjacent Industrious flex workplace.
The location will bring together all of CBRE’s businesses and functions that “interact with” the financial markets, said Steven Iaco, CBRE’s chief communications officer, in an interview. CBRE has had “increasing involvement in the capital markets” in New York and has seen its business in the city grow, Iaco said.
Most of the CBRE executives and businesses that will be based at Lever House are already based in New York at 200 Park, including its chief financial officer and chief investment officer and its mergers-and-acquisitions team, Iaco told CoStar News. Andy Glanzman, named in December to serve as co-CEO of CBRE Investment Management alongside Adam Gallistel, will relocate from Los Angeles to the new office, Iaco said.
The 200 Park tower will continue to serve as the headquarters of CBRE’s New York Tri-State Advisory Services business and house the company’s New York-based Global Workplace Solutions teams, CBRE said.
New relationship model
The move lets CBRE share in amenities and events hosted at the adjacent Industrious workspace. Should CBRE expand its head count at the location over time, it can also eventually take back the Industrious space while in the meantime sharing in the profits generated by Industrious under a management agreement, Industrious Chief Executive Jamie Hodari told CoStar News.
“CBRE and Industrious have done a good amount of commercial work” together, Hodari said. For instance, he said, the parties have worked together on property management projects, among other things.
The model represents a new evolution in their commercial relationship, he said. "It’s a project of complexity and scope that’s going to be the biggest thing we’ve done together. … Typically companies run their own space on a long-term lease, or they basically have a flex provider create a space for them. This is one of the first times where an occupier has done both in a single complex.”
With corporations continuing to contemplate their office space needs, this type of setup will be increasingly embraced by corporate occupiers, Hodari said.
“You are gonna see more of this over time,” he said. “CBRE has the ability to take the Industrious flex space over time. That solves the greatest problem in office space. It’s hard for people to predict their head count over the next three to five years.”
The partnership is the first time Industrious is building a flexible space “from scratch with an attached headquarters,” Hodari told CoStar, adding that the Industrious flexible workspace at Lever House will likely attract the likes of boutique private-equity firms or family offices.
"The quality of the buildout and the food and the services” at the location “are going to be more substantial than at a typical Industrious or any typical flex space,” he said. Hodari also said Industrious will “actively” manage it with events, programming, breakfast and snacks.
CBRE owns a 40% stake in Industrious and is its largest investor, Hodari said.
CBRE chose Lever House, designated as New York’s first modernist landmark in 1982, after the iconic tower in 2023 completed its first major overhaul in 70 years.
The $100 million refurbishment of the property, co-owned by WatermanClark and Brookfield Properties, included a “revitalized” lobby, ground-level public plaza and modernized building systems.
“Lever House is a premier address that will help us to attract top real estate finance talent,” CBRE Chair and CEO Bob Sulentic said in the statement. “It’s located in the heart of Midtown’s financial district and is a convenient walk to 200 Park, which has been the hub of our New York operations for more than 30 years. The floors overlooking a landscaped third floor atrium will enable us to create a compelling workplace experience.”