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Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. has initiated talks with CS First Boston Corp. and several other large tenants about buying or leasing the 1.8-million-square-foot building in midtown south that the insurance giant is vacating.
The talks reflect the dwindling number of large blocks of office space in Manhattan. In the past, major corporations considering headquarters moves have been uninterested in midtown south.
But today any business that needs more than 500,000 square feet has so few choices that it has to consider all options, even those south of 34th Street.
"It's getting to the point where there's a drought of prime-quality major blocks of space," says George Keller, a senior director of Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
A Met Life spokesman says several tenants, which he declines to identify, have expressed an interest in leasing the tower. He says the insurance company has not yet determined whether it will sell, lease or occupy portions of the building.
For three years, Met Life has been pulling out of the north building of its three-building complex on lower Madison Avenue, relocating more than 3,000 employees out of the city. The insurance company plans to spend $150 million to...