By Daniel Geiger
Palantir Technologies is close to expanding at 15 Little West 12th Street, the brand new office building in the Meatpacking District where the California based software company took a floor late last year.
Palantir leased the fifth floor, the building’s 13,300 s/f penthouse, in that deal and is now near signing a lease to expand onto the property’s entire fourth floor as well, a roughly 16,000 s/f space.
The expansion is the first deal in the building since it was sold to the real estate investment company Epic LLC last month for about $70 million. A leasing team from the real estate services company Newmark Knight Frank led by Newmark’s New York area president David Falk had handled deals at 15 Little West 12th Street before the sale and has been retained by Epic to continue to work at the property.
At the time of the acquisition, Steven Elghanayan, a principal at Epic, a company that invests primarily in both residential and commercial properties in New York and London, told Real Estate Weekly that he expected to receive rents for the building’s third and fourth floors as high as $70 per s/f. It was not clear by press time what rates Palantir was negotiating to pay. Calls and emails to the company seeking comment on the expansion were not returned by press time. Michael Morris, an executive at Newmark who represents Palantir, also was unable to comment on the expansion.
Steven Elghanayan and David Falk, his representative at the property who negotiated Palantir’s expansion for Epic, also could not be reached.
According to Palantir’s website, the firm primarily handles work developing software for financial and government clients and “platforms for integrating, visualizing, and analyzing the world’s information.”
In addition to the space taken by Palantir, the building’s ground level retail and second floor were leased last year by the furniture company Arhaus.
Now only one floor remains at the property for rent, the roughly 17,000 s/f third floor.
15 Little West 12th Street was originally imagined by the famed party planner and decorator Robert Isabell. The project fell into the hands of lenders Taconic and Square Mile Capital partners, who had lent over $45 million against the development at a whopping 20% interest rate, according to written reports, after Isabella died suddenly in 2009 from a heart attack.
Taconic and Square Mile completed the development and began marketing it for sale earlier this year using a team from the real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle led by JLL sales executives Richard Baxter, Ron Cohen, Jon Caplan, and Scott Latham, who eventually arranged its sale to Epic.
