GFP Real Estate and BDT & MSD Partners are putting $150 million into a 36-year-old Times Square office tower on the theory that amenities beat new construction. Early evidence says they’re right. Since the repositioning was announced in January 2026, 1540 Broadway has signed 226,500 square feet of new leases.
Project Scope
The building is 907,000 square feet across 44 floors, designed by David Childs at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and completed in 1990 as the Bertelsmann Building. The work centers on roughly 45,000 square feet of new tenant amenity space carved out of the 8th and 36th floors, with Fogarty Finger leading architecture and interiors. Lobby, elevator and entry-sequence work rounds out the scope.
Taking amenity space out of two mid-building floors rather than the base is a deliberate choice. It keeps the ground floor in retail, which in Times Square is the most valuable square footage in the building, and it puts the amenity floors where the elevator banks split, so they serve both stacks without a transfer.
Comcast Advertising anchors the new leasing on a long-term commitment, with Pandora and Woori Bank also taking space. Apollo affiliates are providing financing and will support long-term capital planning alongside BDT & MSD. Work is scheduled to wrap in late 2026.
Why It Matters
The Midtown office market has spent three years sorting into buildings tenants will pay for and buildings they won’t, and the dividing line has not been age. It’s been amenity depth and elevator wait times. 1540 Broadway is a well-located Class A tower that was losing to newer product on features costing a fraction of ground-up construction to add.
$150 million against 907,000 square feet is roughly $165 per foot. New Midtown office construction runs many multiples of that before land. If the leasing velocity holds, the trade will get copied across a large inventory of late-1980s and 1990s towers that are structurally sound and programmatically dated.
The caveat is that 226,500 square feet of leasing in seven months is a strong start, not a stabilized building. Watch the renewal rates in 2028.
Related coverage & projects
Project Team & Details
| Developer | GFP Real Estate |
|---|
| Owner / Client | GFP Real Estate and BDT & MSD Partners |
|---|
| Architect | Fogarty Finger |
|---|
| Consultants | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (Original Architect, 1990) |
|---|
| Status | Under Construction |
|---|
| Funding Source | Private |
|---|
