Avison Young completes 6,000 s/f office lease for Project Sunshine at 211 East 43rd Street in Manhattan

Avison Young, the world's fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm, today announced the completion of a seven-year, 6,000 s/f lease on behalf of Project Sunshine at 211 East 43rd St. The lease nearly doubles the space the nonprofit occupied at its prior location at 108 West 39th St. dramatically increasing the organization's ability to providefree educational, recreational and social programs to children facing medical challenges and their families. Avison Young Principal Michael Leff and Senior Associate David Cohen represented Project Sunshine in the transaction. This site provides a brand new installation for the nonprofit, which occupied its previous location for more than 10 years. "The issues that were of primary concern for Project Sunshine were more space to most effectively deliver services to the children and families it serves, a freight elevator to handle the large capacity of gifts it provides, particularly at holiday time, security issues for its staff and volunteers, and convenient access to transportation to accommodate the thousands of volunteers participating from around the country," said Leff. "We searched more than 25 alternatives, and this well-lit building with high visibility at 43rd St. and Third Avenue, minutes from Grand Central Station, provides the ideal solution, with competitive lease rates and terms." Project Sunshine is well recognized for the free educational, recreational, and social programs it provides to children facing medical challenges. The Empire State Building was lit in the organization's colors to acknowledge the Gala held by the nonprofit this past spring. All of the legal services for the transaction were provided pro-bono for Project Sunshine. The nonprofit's board of directors includes Founder Joseph Weilgus, Executive Director Beatrice Kernan and New York real estate luminary Billy Macklowe. "Project Sunshine is thrilled with its new offices, which Avison Young secured. We are immensely grateful for Iu + Bibliowicz's brilliant design, provided pro bono, and EvensonBest's generously donated state-of-the-art office furniture," said Kernan. "Our team is flourishing in an environment which encourages collaboration and creativity, and which allows us to more efficiently bring dynamic, uplifting programming to the thousands of young patients we serve worldwide." Billy Cohen of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented the landlord, Meadow Partners, in the lease. Project Sunshine empowers a dynamic and dedicated corps of more than 15,000 volunteers to bring programming - recreational (arts), educational (tutoring and mentoring) and social service (HIV and nutritional counseling) to 100,000 children facing medical challenges