Nonprofit Leasing by Submarket.

Deals like NYU Langone Medical Center’s combined 420,000-square-foot lease at 1 Park Avenue in May, and Open Society Foundations’ lease for 152,000 square feet at 224 West 57th Street in April, were among the biggest deals of the year and accounted for a large chunk of all nonprofit leasing activity, according to Cassidy Turley’s "Not-for-Profit & Public Sector Leasing Activity in 2011" report.

The number of leases that exceeded 50,000 square feet comprised 1.29 million total square feet this year, as opposed to 477,000 square feet the year before.

The burgeoning and expanding health care industry, which added 1,300 healthcare jobs in 2011, also contributed to the size of these deals. Three of the five largest leases were by health care firms, according to the report.

One of the hottest buildings for public sector tenants was 100 Church Street, which absorbed a 58,000-square-foot expansion by Healthfirst and a 90,000-square-foot expansion by the State of New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, according to the report. Add that to the 280,000 square foot lease renewal that the NYC Law Department is finalizing for renewal and it’s little surprise the SL Green-owned building has seen a shrinking occupancy rate.

Other buildings, like 120 Wall Street, The Empire State Building and 77 Water Street (which added The William J. Clinton Foundation as a tenant), also performed well in 2011.

“You see a concentration of leasing activity all the way downtown,” said Robair Reichenstein, a managing director at Cassidy Turley and one of the authors of the report.

The fact that these nonprofits have big backers, especially with the George Soros-backed Open Society Foundations, have helped fuel this leasing activity.

“All that grouping of the top five [leases] are all organizations with healthy balance sheets,” said Mr. Reichenstein. “These are all organizations that are as solid as solid can be, so I think it makes sense that these are the large organization that can make the large floor commitments,” he added.

Drosen@Observer.com

The company, a healthcare provider, already occupies about 170,000 square feet at the property, space it took last year in a move to relocate and consolidate its operations in the city.

100 Church Street. (Property Shark)

In its original deal Healthfirst leased floors 16 through 18. The firm will now be adding the entire 14th floor to its space in the 1.1 million square foot downtown office building. Rents at the property are in the $30s per square foot according to market sources.

Derek Trulson, an executive at the real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle who represents Healthfirst along with other JLL executives, said the company wanted the space in order to assure that it would have room to grow over the term of its lease. The healthcare firm signed a 20-year deal last year, locking it in long term at the property. The amount of vacant space at 100 Church Street meanwhile has begun to dwindle as owner SL Green has embarked on an aggressive leasing campaign.

Healthfirst doesn’t need all of the space immediately Mr. Trulson said, but wanted to take the available floor while it was still available.

“They didn’t want to wait until they were under pressure,” Mr. Turlson said.

Healthfirst will sublease out a portion of the new space that it doesn’t yet need, about half of the floor Mr. Trulson said. Mr. Trulson and colleagues Bill Peters and Daoud Awad will market that roughly 30,000 square foot availability.

100 Church Street long struggled with large blocks of vacancy under its previous owners, the Sapir Organization, which lacked the capital and reputation to properly reposition the asset. SL Green ended up taking control of the building in 2010 through a foreclosure on mezzanine debt it held against the property. The firm, which is considered the biggest commercial landlord in the city, has since renovated the building and rattled off a string of deals. Healthfirst was one of the most significant transactions. It signed a lease to come to the property in the summer of 2010 so that it could bring together two offices it previously had at 25 Broadway and 123 William Street.

SL Green also signed a lease last year with Centerline Capital Group to take the entire 15th floor.

Mr. Trulson, Mr. Peters and Mr. Awad represent Healthfirst. SL Green uses an agency team from the real estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank led by Newmark executives Lance Korman, Brian Waterman, Jimmy Kuhn, Jonathan Fanuzzi and Hal Stein to handle leasing transactions at the property.

Dan Geiger, Staff Writer, is reachable at DGeiger@Observer.com

The department, which represents the city, the Mayor and all city agencies in both civil and criminal litigation cases, occupies several floors at 100 Church Street, a roughly 1.1-million-square-foot building in Lower Manhattan where the office has based its operations since 1978.

100 Church Street. (Courtesy Property Shark)

Rents at the property, which is owned by SL Green, are in the $30s per square foot range, sources said.

A spokeswoman for the Law Department, Elizabeth Thomas, confirmed that the office was recommitting to its space in an email to The Commercial Observer.

“We are currently in discussions about renewing our 100 Church Street lease,” Ms. Thomas wrote.

She added that the office does “not have plans to expand at this time.”

The deal allows SL Green to retain its biggest tenant at the building, which has struggled with vacancy in the past. Under the building’s previous owner, the Sapir Organization, multiple empty floors lingered on the market at the property. SL Green, the city’s largest commercial landlord, took control last year by foreclosing on a mezzanine loan it held against the Sapir’s ownership stake in the building.

SL Green has since embarked on a successful leasing campaign. The company recently reached a deal to expand Healthfirst, a 170,000-square-foot tenant it brought to the property in 2010, by about 60,000 square feet. SL Green also leased 60,000 square feet to Centerline Capital Group last year.

CBRE represents the NYC Law Department. SL Green uses an agency team from the real estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank led by Newmark executives Lance Korman, Brian Waterman, Jimmy Kuhn, Jonathan Fanuzzi and Hal Stein to handle leasing transactions at the property.

Dan Geiger, Staff Writer, is reachable at DGeiger@Observer.com