Glen Weiss โ"Renewing Midtown" (Part 2)
Glenn Weiss (Executive VP & Director of Leasing, Vornado Realty Trust) speaks at Modern All Over Again, Urban Green Council'sย ...
Executive Vice President of Office Leasing & Co-Head of Real Estate, Vornado Realty
Search every verified Glen Weiss interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote โ each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Glen Weiss, Executive Vice President of Office Leasing & Co-Head of Real Estate at Vornado Realty, spoke at a 2016 Urban Green Council event about the company's approach to redeveloping older Midtown Manhattan office buildings. Weiss stated that redeveloping existing assets has been Vornado's "bread and butter" for many years, and described projects such as the renovation of 330 Madison Avenue, which was done while the building remained about 83% occupied. He noted that the company installed a new curtain wall overnight to avoid disrupting tenants, and that the renovation resulted in operating expense savings of over a dollar per square foot annually. Weiss also said that Vornado had achieved LEED EB certification and an Energy Star score of 82 at the property, and that sustainability has become a "have to" for tenants when considering office space. Weiss discussed leasing activity at 330 Madison, stating that two-thirds of the building had been leased in the five years prior, with tenants including Guggenheim Partners, HSBC, and Jones Lang LaSalle. He also described a logistical decision to consolidate building access onto Madison Avenue, which required renegotiating a Citibank lease to create a new lobby. Weiss mentioned that Vornado was constructing two new buildings at 510 West 22nd Street and on Ninth Avenue and 15th Street, and said the company was learning anew about ground-up development, noting that "a lot has changed" since the 2001 Bloomberg lease at the building where the event was held.
“One thing that we've been really focused on at our company for many years now is redeveloping our assets. That's been kind of our bread and butter as a company for many years.”
“We lease two-thirds of the building new in the last five years, pretty remarkable. The head tenant Guggenheim Partners moved in about three years ago, HSBC took a hundred thousand feet, Jones Lang LaSalle moved their headquarters into the building.”
“We did a big study on all of this before we undertook the infrastructure part of the project. We got LEED EB certification when we finished, and we're now striving for gold. Energy Star of course we're at 82.”
“As a company we are very focused on sustainability. When we get into a meeting with a tenant, the first thing they want to know or maybe the second but at the top of their list is what are you doing in terms of LEED and sustainability. It's a have to.”
“We literally put up the new curtain wall and at like two o'clock in the morning we'd go into your space and take off the old curtain wall from the inside. We had to work on over because the tenants didn't want us in their space.”
“The biggest decision we made from a logistical standpoint was getting everyone into just Madison Avenue. That took a long-term lease with Citibank for a large branch, so we had to renegotiate the Citibank lease, split their space in half to create a triple bay lobby centered on Madison Avenue.”
“The renovation saved a lot of money on utilities. When you add the monies up, savings here is a little over a dollar a foot in operating expenses, which is close to a million dollars a year. So that's good for Vornado and that's also good for the tenants.”
“It's interesting, you know, Bob, you talked about redoing the buildings. We're building two new buildings now. So, you know, it's been fun again because we built this building the building you're in today for Bloomberg. The Bloomberg lease was signed in 2001.”
“With the new buildings we're now actually for our company learning again what we need to do from a ground up perspective and it's been interesting, big education, a lot has changed, all for the better by the way.”
Glenn Weiss (Executive VP & Director of Leasing, Vornado Realty Trust) speaks at Modern All Over Again, Urban Green Council'sย ...
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