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Psst. Looking for big blocks of office space at competitive prices, but don't want to leave midtown? Then swing on over to Third Avenue between East 38th and East 60th streets. There, nearly 60 years after the Third Avenue El was torn down, and the Durst family and others began putting up high-rise office towers, a growing glut of available space beckons.
"Third Avenue is the softest market in midtown," said Alan Desino, executive managing director at real estate firm Colliers International. "There's no question that is where the best bargains are."
In the first quarter of this year, the avenue's availability rate leaped to 17.8%, from 15.2% in the prior quarter, according to Colliers. That compares with a rate of 11.7% in midtown north as a whole during the same period.
Powering that rise along Third were acres of office space hitting the market in large dollops at several towers. The biggest of those availabilities is the half-million square feet up for grabs at TIAACREF's 685 Third Ave., just a block up the avenue from 150 E. 42nd St. - on the corner of Third Avenue...