Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Real Estate

Massive food & entertainment skyscraper coming to FiDi

A giant new food-and-entertainment venue is coming to 28 Liberty St., which is stepping out to swing after decades as one of the city’s least-public-friendly “iconic” skyscrapers.

Legends Hospitality, which runs everything from the Yankee Stadium food concession to the One World Trade Center Observatory, has been tapped to operate a 35,000 square-foot food-and-live music complex on 28 Liberty’s ground floor. The as-yet-unnamed venue, to be designed by famed architect Jeffrey Beers, will incorporate the property’s historic Noguchi rock garden.

The 60-story tower was the brainchild of David Rockefeller, who named his new bank headquarters One Chase Manhattan Plaza.

It was an International Style icon but offered little to outsiders other than its alfresco plaza. From the time it opened in 1961 until 9/11, the Wall Street area was home mainly to financial firms and only to a bare handful of lonely residents.

Today of course, FiDi is a mixed commercial-residential neighborhood full of stores and restaurants. Fosun Hive Holdings, a division of China’s Fosun International which bought the tower for $725 million in 2013, has been swift to reorient 28 Liberty St. to the new climate.

The skyscraper hit a milestone this month with completion of $150 million in capital upgrades. Most visible is the emergence of a 200,000-square-foot retail portion on the ground and three lower floors — previously home to a bank branch and a newsstand. (The hipped-up high-rise also has a huge Danny Meyer restaurant and event space, Manhatta, on its 60th floor).

With the Legends deal, more than 60 percent of the retail portion at the tower’s base — branded as Marketplace 28 — is leased.

The Legends space “will be more than a food hall,” said Fosun leasing director Thomas Costanzo. “We worked with them to create something unique.” Scheduled to open in 2020, it will feature leading international chefs, major-artist music performances and a separate, “upscale” restaurant.

Fosun was also repped in the deal by Newmark Knight Frank’s Jeffrey Roseman and Ross Kaplan.

Meanwhile, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is building out a 45,000-square-foot, 10-screen movie palace in 28 Liberty’s lowest below-ground level, to open in late 2019.

Costanzo said that 28 Liberty’s 2.2 million square feet of office space are about 77 percent leased despite departures at the end of 2018 by JP Morgan Chase and Milbank Tweed, which had 300,000 square feet between them.

Three newly signed deals totaling 170,000 square feet are helping to offset them — a 70,000 square-foot renewal by Allianz and new leases for Local Initiatives Support Corporation (60,000 square feet) and 42,000 square feet for HelloFresh SE.

Asking rents for remaining space are in the mid-high $50s per square foot on lowest floors and the mid-high $70s in tower floors, Costanzo said.

Fosun is looking to take on a minority partner in 28 Liberty but has no intention of giving up control.