Durst to Ask for $200 a Foot at One Bryant Park as Tenant Tahari Balks

Douglas Durst’s Bank of America Tower is still under construction, but the number of unleased floors in the hotly desired building is growing.

How?

After initially trying to sublease its space, clothing designer Elie Tahari recently worked out a deal with the Durst Organization to give back its lease on the 50th floor, a Durst spokesman confirmed. Tahari had a 15-year lease for about $150 a foot on the floor, and took another floor in its existing building, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans.

Demand has apparently grown for the floor since Tahari signed the lease in early 2007: Now Mr. Durst is asking a whopping $200 a foot for the space, one floor shy of the top, an amount that would come out to just shy of $6 million a year for the more than 29,000-square-foot floor.

Office rents above the $200 mark have only recently entered the Manhattan vocabulary (or the American vocabulary, for that matter), with investor Michael Price signing a lease at 667 Madison Avenue last summer with rents that start below but are to rise past $200 a foot.

The Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, one of the only large office towers to rise in recent years, has been fetching rents well above where Mr. Durst originally planned. The building has one other floor left, the 37th floor, where asking rents are at $175 a foot, according to the real estate tracking firm MrOfficeSpace.