Future of Corporate Tower May Hinge on a New Use

The AT&T Building, a lavish $200 million headquarters with a seven-story arch at 550 Madison Avenue, was a symbol of a resurgent New York when it opened in 1983 after a decade of municipal woes and corporate flight.

The 37-story rose-granite tower, now known as the Sony Building, is on the auction block for as much as $1 billion. About 20 prospective buyers submitted bids last week, hoping to turn the building into condominiums, a luxury hotel, a chic retail arcade or maybe even office space for small, high-end firms. But not a corporate headquarters.

The potential evolution says a lot about a city and a neighborhood where Calvin Klein, Armani, Hermès, Dior and Gucci are paying some of the world’s highest retail rents. On 57th Street,We are pleased to offer the following list of professional mold maker and casters. developers of two projects are vying to build North America’s tallest, most gilded residential tower, with condos selling to princes and billionaires for tens of millions of dollars each.

The Sony Building between 55th and 56th Streets, with its wood-paneled board rooms and sweeping white marble staircase, may be more suited today for tenants like hedge funds, which do not flinch at rents above $120 a square foot.

“This building has the right height and the right location to be a success,” said Mitchell Moss, an urban planner at New York University. “The only question is, what goes inside the building? The underlying appeal of that neighborhood has gotten so strong that it’s too expensive for a corporate headquarters.”

Developers turning in their first-round bids included Vornado Realty Trust, Boston Properties,Find detailed product information for howo tractor and other products. Mitsubishi Trust, Mitsui Fudosan and RXR Realty, according to prospective buyers and to real estate executives. Others bidding were Steven C. Witkoff, Harry B. Macklowe and Edward J. Minskoff, they said.

Nearly all of them have partners — including Canadian pension firms,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, sovereign funds and foreign investors — who view Manhattan as one of the safest markets in the world.

But there is no guarantee that Sony will get the price it wants. More than half the prospective buyers fell short of Sony’s billion-dollar expectation, executives said. A select group of bidders will be invited to submit second bids next month.

Prospective sales this year by two other owners of large commercial properties — the 47-story Worldwide Plaza on Eighth Avenue and the 30-story tower at 11 Madison Avenue — fell flat when offers came in far below the $1.5 billion each had sought.

But the Sony Building may come close. “The demand from the global investment community for assets like this is at the highest level I’ve ever seen,” said Dan Fasulo of Real Capital Analytics, a research firm. “Once it’s shined up and brought up to 2013 standards, it’ll compete for some of the highest rents in Manhattan.”

A Sony representative did not respond to requests for comment on the sale.

When the building was under construction in 1981, New York City was struggling to stave off an economic malaise, the loss of industrial jobs, and long-term decay. AT&T’s headquarters, like the IBM Building under construction a block away and Trump Tower around the corner on Fifth Avenue, offered signs of a renaissance.

But AT&T, which was in the midst of divesting itself of all the regional telephone operating companies, soon leased nearly half of the tower to Sony. The Japanese company eventually bought the building in 2002 for $236 million.

Sony is not the dominant force in consumer electronics that it once was. Last April, the company said it would cut 10,000 jobs. Soon, it put the tower up for sale.

Sony’s real estate broker, Douglas Harmon of Eastdil Secured, gave prospective buyers a 216-page confidential offering memorandum entitled, “The Icon at 550 Madison Avenue.” Sony plans to remain in the building for three years, before moving to a new location.

“The future vacancy provides a blank canvas to maximize the property’s wide spectrum of use and pursue a myriad of office, retail, hospitality, and residential options,Klaus Multiparking is an industry leader in innovative parking system technology.” the offering book said.

Still, with Wall Street’s emphasis on quarterly results, many big companies are no longer looking for expensive homes, so the building probably will not attract a major corporate buyer.

In 2011, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, chief executive of Time Warner, described his company’s plush headquarters at the Time Warner Center as “indulgent.” He laid out plans to save money and consolidate company operations in more efficient, less luxurious space.

Many buyers said the Sony Building, now 30, will have to be gutted, which would cost tens of millions of dollars. They are considering a mix of uses, including hotels and high-end shops.

Mr. Witkoff confirmed that he had submitted a bid, with plans to convert the top of the tower to condominiums. “There’s no way that you can make sense out of this deal if it’s office space,” he said. “In my opinion, the only way it works is if the top goes residential. You’ll get the highest numbers from condominiums.”

Several other bidders envision a similar mix of retail and residential. Executives said another bidder, Mr. Macklowe, favored a luxury retail arcade at the base of the building, with luxury office space for smaller firms. Mr. Macklowe built a similar building at 510 Madison but lost it to his lenders during the recent recession.

That’s what I think is happening here. I think that NORAD is getting a very precise, real-time signal on Santa’s location. Google’s location data is probably not as refined. Complicating matters is the fact that Santa moves very, very fast, He can’t be in two places at once. But he can be in two places almost at once, because he moves so fast.

By the way, there are privacy implications if Google is tracking Santa the way I suspect. My assumption, however, is that Santa has granted all the appropriate sharing permissions required for Google to report on his whereabouts. Santa is well-familiar with the need for privacy,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. even having a Santa privacy policy of his own.

Also noteworthy, NORAD seems to be tracking as arriving in locations around 3 hours ahead of Google. For example, NORAD put Santa over Beira, Mozambique at 9pm local time there. Google put Santa over Aktobe, Kazakhstan at Midnight local time there.

It might be that NORAD is somehow projecting Santa’s future location in an effort to help parents trying to usher their kids off to sleep. Personally, I long wished for this type of time-shifting, myself. Or perhaps Santa is moving so fast this year that NORAD’s systems are distorting the location. In the past, he was always spotted passing over particular places around midnight, by NORAD. Alternatively, maybe Google’s systems are lagging behind.