Avison Young inks deal for an NYC home

More details have emerged on Canada-based commercial brokerage Avison Young’s first Manhattan office. As The Real Deal reported in its June issue, the firm signed a sublease at 623 Fifth Avenue, and now the New York Observer has learned that the space comprises the full, 15,000-square-foot 22nd floor of the building and is being sublet from Dublin-based bank Dapfa. The brokerage has agreed to take the space for two and a half years.

“We’re growing so fast we didn’t want to commit to something for more than three years,” Arthur Mirante, Avison Young’s tri-state president, told the Observer.

After making its first hire in former CBRE Group agent Greg Kraut, who was brought on to lead the forthcoming office, and landing Mirante, a former Cushman & Wakefield CEO, Young now has some 30 agents, recently adding Justin Piasecki, formerly of the Carlton Group, and Amy Levenson, previously with Goldman Sachs, as principal and executive vice president in May.

The move has been a longtime coming for Avison Young, which announced its entry into the Manhattan market more than a year ago, and had been working out of temporary office space from office suite company Regus at 245 Park Avenue.  Young is paying approximately $50 per square foot for its new space, the Observer said. [NYO] — Christopher Cameron