Jones Lang LaSalle


Firm gives downtown passing grade
Kaplan K12 moves to 1 Liberty Plaza; Greenwich Ave. a good site for B&N

Published on March 27, 2006

A company that tutors public school students has subleased office space in lower Manhattan to be closer to the New York City Department of Education.

Kaplan K12 Learning Services, a division of SAT test preparation company Kaplan Inc., signed an 8.5-year sublease for 43,000 square feet at 1 Liberty Plaza, between Liberty and Cortlandt streets.

Kaplan K12 works with the Education Department, located at the Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers St. between Broadway and Elk Street, to create literacy and math curricula for the schools.

The company, which moved out of Kaplan Inc.'s corporate headquarters at 888 Seventh Ave. at West 56th Street, says it is glad to have relocated to lower Manhattan. The new offices "show our commitment to the New York community," says Stuart Udell, president of Kaplan K12.
The asking rent at 1 Liberty Plaza is $40 a square foot.

In addition to allowing Kaplan K12 room to grow, the move to the 53-story building will enable the company to relocate its technology and software engineering operations from Oakland, Calif.
Newmark Knight Frank and Cushman & Wakefield Inc. represented Kaplan K12.

"Downtown is drawing tenants because it makes strategic sense to be there," says Scott Panzer, a principal at Newmark Knight Frank.

The sublessor at 1 Liberty Plaza is General Re Corp., which vacated the space because it is consolidating its offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in midtown. The Staubach Co. represented the reinsurance firm.

--Julie Satow