Oxford Properties’ willingness to embrace the challenges that had deterred many others has paid off in the largest U.S. single-asset office trade of the pandemic: tech giant Google’s $2.1 billion purchase in early 2022 of the St. John’s Terminal building at 550 Washington St. in the Hudson Square neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan.
The site, a former freight terminal, was long coveted by developers but nothing had come of it due to what Oxford described as the “complexity and scale” of the project that involved a historic structure that occupies two city blocks.
Oxford saw an opportunity to transform the historic site, nearby Hudson River Park, the West Village, SoHo and Tribeca, to what it calls “the workplace of the future” when it bought the property more than five years ago in the Canadian firm’s first project as a lead developer in the United States.
Today the former industrial site has been transformed into a 12-story, 1.3 million-square-foot workspace, designed by CookFox Architects, that boasts of biophilic design and other features that corporate tenants covet especially as the pandemic made health and wellness a bigger focus. Public gardens at street level and three planted terraces above blur the boundaries between indoors and outdoors.
The property, overlooking the Hudson River, also features biodynamic lighting, highly filtered outside air as well as sensors, beacons and an integrated operating system.
As well-heeled companies such as Google see offices as a key part of helping attract and retain top talent, the tech giant first signed what Oxford said on its website was Google’s largest lease in history before ultimately exercising its option to buy the building.
The deal stood out as the winner of a 2023 CoStar Impact Award for best sale/acquisition of the year in New York, as judged by real estate professionals familiar with the market.
About the project: St. John’s Terminal, which will serve as the cornerstone of Google’s Hudson Square campus, features a design that leaned into its existing 100,000-square-foot floor plates and 15-foot high ceilings, Oxford said.
The developer said it also used “innovative construction techniques never seen before” in New York that involved the same method used to build bridges by creating pre-cast concrete panels that were shipped and assembled on-site. That was not only cheaper and faster than the traditional cast-in-place option, but it also helped Oxford complete the building ahead of schedule despite the global disruptions caused by the pandemic.
What the judges said: James Allan, first vice president at Sentinel Real Estate Corp., liked the “innovative features of the project, including sensors, beacons and an integrated operating system and other high-tech amenities” that he said “really set it apart from the other nominees in this category.”
They made it happen: Oxford Properties’ team included Dean Shapiro, senior vice president of strategic partnerships; Ofer Zer, vice president of projects; Brian Jaffee, director of construction; Zach Reiner, director of development; Lisa Rahm, assistant project manager; Lena Choi, vice president of real estate finance and capital markets; Vanessa Kolias, associate director of investments; and Nu Suwankosai, head of investments and credit for the U.S. region.