Tishman Speyer's return to the Chrysler Building has a price tag now: $235 million. Bisnow reports the renovation figure this week, days after the ground-lease deal that put Tishman Speyer back in charge of the Art Deco tower at 405 Lexington Avenue was first confirmed — a lease our paper already flagged as a signal that work was coming. Now there's a number attached to it.
The deal structure, per Bisnow, pairs Tishman Speyer with Cooper Union, the building's longtime land owner, and Semyon Alexandrovsky's PSP, part of the recapitalization that ended the building's rocky run under previous operators. $235 million on a landmark like the Chrysler isn't a lobby refresh — that scale of spend on a 95-year-old, landmarked steel-and-masonry tower points toward facade and curtain-wall work, mechanical and elevator modernization, and base-building systems replacement, the categories that eat renovation budgets on prewar towers this size.
None of that scope has been bid yet, and no contractor has been named. But a number this size on a building this well known means a GC selection and a trade buildout are coming, and landmark-building renovation work — masonry restoration, historic window replacement, MEP upgrades done around tenants — is its own specialty lane. Firms with FISP and landmarks-division experience should be watching for the RFP, not waiting for a press release.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission will have a say on anything touching the exterior or the lobby, which means a public approval step sits between this announcement and a notice to proceed. Contractors chasing this one should track LPC's calendar for a Chrysler Building item as the next concrete signal, not another real estate story about the lease.