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In just three short weeks, it's become the question uppermost in the minds of a wide variety of Manhattan office tenants.
"They want to know that wherever they're going, the building has a backup generator," said Louis D'Avanzo, a broker at Cushman & Wakefield.
Backup power has long been a principal concern for financial firms, Web and technology companies, and others that must be up and running 24/7. In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, it has become the new must-have for tenants of all stripes. As a result, once-esoteric infrastructure like 2,000-horsepower diesel generators are front and center in lease discussions. Yet as the storm has propelled backup power into the spotlight, it has laid bare the limitations of such systems. As many companies discovered late last month, generators are valuable only if they actually work.
That was the lesson at 55 Water St., the city's largest office building and one of its best armed when it came to coping with blackouts. The 3.8 million-square-foot behemoth boasted an array of 14 generators that had...