Fintech firm Current is withdrawing from Chelsea and depositing itself at Vornado’s Penn 2.
The mobile banking company signed a 10-year lease for a little over 62,000 square feet on the 23rd floor of Penn 2, Vornado Realty Trust’s newly redeveloped office tower above Penn Station, The Real Deal has learned. The asking rent was $125 per square foot.
Current is relocating from RXR’s 620 Sixth Avenue, where it leased about 72,000 square feet in 2023, Commercial Observer reported. A Current spokesperson declined to comment on the new lease.
The deal adds to Vornado’s momentum at the Penn District, where chairman and CEO Steven Roth declared yesterday in an earnings call that “it’s clear that the tipping point … is now behind us.” Penn 2 recently underwent a $750 renovation aimed at attracting blue-chip tenants. The 31-story tower is now 78 percent leased.
Current Real Estate Advisors’ Adam Hennick and Rob Kluge represented Current in the deal. Vornado was represented in-house by Josh Glick and Jared Silverman, along with a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Bruce Mosler and Josh Kuriloff.
The deal comes as the office market shows signs of stabilizing and Manhattan’s Class A towers are quickly filling up. The Penn Station submarket’s vacancy rate was about 19 percent at the end of the third quarter, compared with the borough’s overall rate of 22 percent, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report.
The lease adds to a string of recent deals at Penn 2, as tenants continue to gravitate toward newly renovated properties near mass transit. Communications and consulting firm FGS Global just signed a 15-year lease for 80,000 square feet at Penn 2. Last summer, Verizon inked a 200,000-square-foot lease with plans to move its headquarters to the 1.8 million-square-foot building, formerly known as 2 Penn Plaza.
Other tenants include Madison Square Garden’s corporate offices, Major League Soccer and Universal Music Group.
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