EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

THE resurgent Empire State Building pulled off a trifecta this week.

The iconic but once commercially marginal landmark scored its first full-floor office lease in years, a major retail lease and the Landmarks Preservation Commission approval for an ambitious lobby restoration.

The triple play reflects $500 million in capital and aesthetic improvements by the Empire State’s manager, Wien & Malkin, to bring the 2.1 million square-foot tower into the 21st Century.

In the new office lease, Brennan Beer Gorman Architects is taking the whole 25th floor, with 30,995 square feet. The design firm is moving from 515 Madison Ave., where it had 22,000 feet. Its New York projects include Vornado’s 4 Union Square South, home to Whole Foods and Filene’s, and nearby office tower 420 Fifth Ave.

The move into the Empire State by a global creative firm is perhaps the first there since King Kong scaled its heights. The property, aka 350 Fifth Ave., had atrophied during a long court battle between the owners and former leasing/managing agent Helmsley-Spear.

While tourists continued to flock to the observatory, office floors were leased to below-market tenants, and the tower’s mechanical systems and public spaces decayed.

Last year, a settlement agreement ousted Helmsley-Spear and gave firm management control to Wien & Malkin, headed by President Anthony Malkin.

(The Empire State’s owner is an entity controlled by Peter L. Malkin, who is Anthony’s father, and the estate of Leona Helmsley, who was not associated with Helmsley-Spear.)

One of Malkin’s first moves was to call in a big-league outside leasing agent.

Leasing director Steven Eynon, part of a CB Richard Ellis team that includes Mary Ann Tighe, Mitch Rudin and Simon Wasserberger, called the Brennan Beer Gorman deal “a microcosm of what we’re trying to do here.”

When CBRE took over leasing from Helmsley- Spear last year, “We had 12 tenants on that floor, and now we have one,” said Eynon.

He added that the Em pire State’s 550 office tenants just of two years ago have been whittled down to 409, as spaces were gradually consolidated, reconfigured and modernized to accommodate larger tenants.

Eynon did not disclose terms of the new lease but said asking rents on floors 20-39 are in the mid-high $50s per square foot. Brennan Beer Gorman was repped by Cushman & Wakefield’s Mitch Arkin and Scott Vinett.

Simultaneously, a new retail lease will bring the Empire State the city’s largest Starbucks – a 3-level, 8,400 square-foot jumbo on the 34th Street side. CBRE’s Eric Gelber, Andrew Goldberg and Matthew Chmielecki repped the landlord.

Meanwhile, the city’s Landmarks Commission green-lighted plans – first reported here last March – to restore and revitalize the Art Deco lobby. Architects Beyer Blinder Belle will oversee the project, which will start soon and be completed in phases.

The work includes restoration of the Shreve, Lamb and Harmon-designed lobby’s original ceiling mural, which was covered by a drop ceiling. The original ceiling depicts a celestial sky rendered in aluminum leaf with gold glazes.

New chandeliers that were part of the original lobby design but never completed will be created and installed. The plans also call for improved interior and exterior storefronts, and upgrades to the entrances, corridors and elevator banks – which will also improve the flow of crowds through the lobby.

“We’re delighted they accepted our entire plan,” said building General Manager James T. Connors.

Connors reiterated what Malkin told us last spring: “Yes, the ‘8 Wonders of the World’ are coming out,” referring to the tacky glass display installed in the 1960s. “We’re going to Italy for marble to replace them, and people won’t even notice they were ever there.”

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Restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow, owner of China Grill and Wild Salmon, is poised to launch a huge new restaurant in the Empire Hotel at Broadway and 63rd Street.

Sources said a deal is all but done for up to 15,000 square feet on the ground and second floors.

Chodorow was traveling yesterday and unreachable.

It was not known what type of eatery he plans to open in the handsomely refurbished Empire, which also houses P.J. Clarke’s.

The Empire’s broker, Winick Realty’s Lori Shabtai, chuckled, “I enjoy your paper every morning” but declined comment.

Chodorow’s rep, Karine Bahkoum, said he had not yet signed a lease but would do so soon. [email protected]