Investment bankers get floor-plate envy

The WSJ has a big article today on the demand in investment banks for big NYC trading floors. Apparently the new Goldman Sachs tower in Battery Park City will have no fewer than six trading floors, each of a very impressive 72,000 square feet. That’s huge — I’m pretty sure it’s significantly larger than the Salomon Smith Barney trading floor at the old 7 World Trade Center, and I think that was the largest in Manhattan at the time. Of course, if you’re willing to leave Manhattan, the sky’s the limit: the UBS trading floor in Stamford is 103,000 square feet.

If you see lots of coverage about the size of “floor plates” in the new buildings at the World Trade Center site, this is why. Larry Silverstein, the owner, would love an investment-banking tenant, but can’t provide that kind of contiguous square footage in any of the new buildings. The WSJ reports that “construction will start within the next year” on the two new office towers at the eastern edge of the site; I’ll believe it when I see it.

One intriguing part of the WSJ article comes in its graphic:

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Note how number 5, in this graphic, is clearly 2 World Financial Center, both in terms of where it sits on the map, and in the accompanying text. Which might come as a surprise to Merrill types who think they work at 4 World Financial Center, up to the northwest. Is Brookfield be thinking of moving Merrill from 4WFC to 2WFC? And do the people at the WSJ know something about this? They might: after all, they work at 2 World Financial Center themselves.

UPDATE: Well, I bollixed that one up. The WSJ is at 1WFC, not 2WFC, and it seems that ML has long since spilled over from 4WFC to 2WFC, and is presently in a large chunk of both.

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3 Responses to Investment bankers get floor-plate envy

  1. Tom says:

    Merrill occupies all of 4 WFC and the majority of 2WFC where Merrill has a master net lease until 2013. Brookfield owns manages and operates 4WFC and owns 2WFC, but Merrill manages and controls 2WFC until 2013. The big issue is whether or not Merrill renews its master lease at 2WFC or not.

  2. Mike says:

    Actually ML occupies a small portion of WFC 2 these days, they used to occupy more. WSJ is in 1 WFC. Good thing they check facts on this site

  3. john says:

    All-glass curtain walls have roughly 7 times the embedded energy of glass and masonry curtain walls — and everyone’s building glass curtain walls these days.

    Second, a 72,000 sq ft floor in a Manhattan tower will be completely sealed = not green.

    Third, trading floors pump out enormous heat because of all the electronics.

    Sure, we’re going to get trading floors, but is anyone at Goldman et al giving more than superficial thought to global warming. All-glass, sealed buildings can get “platinum” ratings, but they shouldn’t be able to.

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