City's largest fountain lists in Midtown as activation space

The next brand to lease the former bank space at 1251 Ave. of the Americas for a mere $5 million per year will also make a splash by using its nearly half-acre giant fountain for brand activations.

“It’s a store and stage,” said Kenneth Hochhauser of Winick, the retail agent for the Mitsui Fudosan America-owned tower. “You can directly engage the customer and program and activate the outdoor plaza and drive social media engagement into the millions.”

Known during the holiday season for its iconic, Instagrammable, oversized red Christmas ornaments, during the rest of the year, the enormous fountain and plaza that sits between West 49th and 50th streets provide a peaceful retreat for area workers.

Meanwhile, an average of 80,000 people per day stroll by on the sidewalk while hundreds of thousands travel between Times Square and Rockefeller Center directly across the street — with many snapping photos and generating millions of social media impressions.

“It’s between Main and Main,” said Slater Traaen, senior director at MFA.

The 5,346 square-foot ground floor former bank space has 30-foot-high ceilings and windows that stretch 116-feet across the front of the building with another 58-feet of frontage on both side streets.

Below grade, an additional 15,068 square feet with 16-foot-high ceilings connects to the vast underground network of Sixth Avenue and Rockefeller Center’s dining and shopping concourses as well as west to the N and R trains in Times Square.

Two upscale restaurants with private dining and a flagship food hall with catering options are opening soon as part of 1251’s larger transformation that includes a welcoming new lobby.

“We have a very special building,” said John Kessler, CEO of MFA, which has no debt on the 54-story, 2.4 million-square-foot property it’s owned since 1986. “The additional repositioning of the retail, plaza and concourse level will be exciting for our tenants and visitors.”

The tower was built in 1972 as the Mobil Building and after that company’s rebranding was known as the Exxon Building.

“[The usage] is up to the imagination and the laws of physics.”

But Exxon is long gone and now, after 55 years, the prominently located Chase branch has checked out, leaving behind a blank canvas that’s energizing MFA and its leasing teams to think out-of-the-bank-box and bring the fountain into the mix.

“It was such an important feature to market as part of the retail experience,” said Traaen.

At 85 feet by 200 feet, the fountain is the largest in the city and is often a backdrop for television shows and movies like John Krasinski’s “IF.”

But it has the potential to generate exciting brand promotions by being activated with a basketball court, fashion runway or car display on a ginormous stage that can be expanded to cover the entire fountain – with the additional use of the plaza area.

“Imagine a Formula 1 Experience with cars on the fountain and all around the plaza,” said Hochhauser. “[The usage] is up to the imagination and the laws of physics.”

Last year, the ownership tapped sculptor Enrique Cabrera, to bring his cubist-style Apple sculpture, “La Gran Manzana” to the fountain. “He placed a QR code on the base and over a four-month period we had 1.4 million people scan the code,” said Traaen.

“This is an opportunity to stop people in their tracks,” Traaen continued. “The space is very important to this area, and we want to partner with a retailer who sees the vision and can enjoy that.”