Asset management firm Intermediate Capital Group has signed a 10-year lease to move from 250 Park Avenue to 600 Lexington Avenue, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The company will be taking the entire 24th floor in the SL Green-owned building, at a size of 7,000 square feet. The asking rent is $85 a square foot.

David Hollander and Sam Seiler, both of CBRE, represented ICG in the deal. Paul Glickman of Jones Lang LaSalle represented SL Green.

Calls to CBRE were not returned. Mr. Glickman did not respond to an email requesting comment by press time.

ICG will be moving out of its 8th floor suite of 250 Park Avenue, a LEED-EB Gold building owned by See Park Av 250 and AEW Capital Management, L.P, according to CoStar.

ICG structures and provides mezzanine finance, leveraged credit and minority equity, and manages over $15 billion in assets, according to its website. The firm has offices in London, Madrid, Hong Kong and Stockholm.

SL Green, along with Hines US Core Office Fund, purchased 600 Lexington Avenue in 2010 for $193 million, or $636 per square foot, according to published reports.

The building was nearly 94 percent occupied during the time of the purchase, but was expecting over half of those leases to expire by 2013.

600 Lexington Avenue's vacancy rate shot up from 17.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 25.1 percent the first quarter 2012, according to CoStar.

Daniel Edward Rosen is reachable at Drosen@observer.com

Viacom’s lease renewal and expansion at 1515 Broadway, which will lead to the company taking the entirety of the building’s leasable space, was preceded by one of the largest commercial mortgage loans the city has seen recently, The Commercial Observerhas learned.

The Bank of China’s penchant for Class A Manhattan office buildings, and its history at 1515 Broadway, led to the deal. The $775 million first mortgage that the bank provided recently will allow owner SL Green Realty Corp. to replace $447 million in financing that had been in place since 2009—also from the Bank of China. According to SL Green, the difference will be used to pay for the transaction and “for general corporate purposes.”

Simon Cices, a partner in the New York office of Atlanta-based Troutman Sanders represented the Bank of China, in both the 2009 loan and this most recent refinancing. He told The Commercial Observer that the loan was negotiated both with and without Viacom in mind.

“The outside date for Viacom to make its decision had not yet arrived but the bank basically did its analysis under either scenario, which is the right thing to do for any conservative bank,” Mr. Cices said, adding that the bank has been a client for twelve years now. “We think this is a great loan to make—it’s a great property.”

The loan is for a term of 7 years and was brokered by HFF, according to sources. Familiarity with the building, SL Green and with Viacom as a tenant definitely helped move the process along, Mr. Cices said, even with several balls in the air at once.

“The Bank of China has made other loans to SL Green—600 Lexington Avenue is a loan that they have, 3 Columbus Circle—there are a few,” Mr. Cices explained. “So there is an ongoing relationship and trust between the two companies. This one went pretty quickly. From term sheet to closing—I’d like to say 2 months. Since we had represented the Bank of China in 2009 when they did the last iteration of the loan, we were very familiar with the Viacom lease as it existed, and since they were by far the largest tenant it made the legal analysis much easier.”

Mr. Cices has been representing them for 12 years. “But in the beginning,” he said, “it started small and slowly and as they developed knowledge of America and New York they have made some decent-sized loans outside of New York. But New York is a particular focus of theirs.”

As far as placing other New York-area financing, the bank is always open to new opportunities. “In any business in this world in today’s economy, they say ‘If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward,’” Mr. Cices said. “They’re always looking.”

Carl Gaines is reachable at Cgaines@observer.com

Michael Gottlieb, a top leasing executive formerly at Grubb & Ellis, is going to Avison Young, the Canadian real estate services firm making a push to bulk up substantially in Manhattan.

Mr. Gottlieb was one of most highly regarded dealmakers at Grubb & Ellis, which had lost brokerage talent as the firm faultered towards bankruptcy over the past year.

“I was attracted to Avison Young by the high-level caliber of people joining the firm around the country as well as the ability to be part of a culture that fosters top-quality work product through open collaboration,” Mr. Gottlieb stated in a prepared release. “Avison Young’s principal-led, client-service model is extremely appealing. I am confident it will enhance my ability to service clients and enable me to become involved in many significant projects with my new partners.”

Mr. Gottlieb’s hiring comes just days after Avison Young made its biggest personnel announcement to date in the city. On Wednesday last week, the company revealed it is bringing on Arthur Mirante, Cushman & Wakefield’s former CEO and a top leasing dealmaker at the firm, to join as tri-state president.

Avison Young quietly established a New York presence last year, hiring Greg Kraut, a former CBRE leasing executive. Mr. Kraut continues to be the company’s senior-most executive in the city. In a conversation with The Commercial Observer last week, Mr. Mirante said that Avison Young would seek to add new hires rapidly in the coming months.

“I would be disappointed if we didn’t have 30-40 brokers in the next 24 months,” Mr. Mirante said. “Provided we can find the right people and right fit, productive people who have the right concept of collaboration and teamwork.”

Mr. Gottlieb is one among a number of New York brokers who have left Grubb & Ellis since it was bought by the Wall Street firm BGC Partners. BGC combined the company with the real estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank, which it bought last year, to form what it now calls Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.

According to several brokers at Grubb & Ellis and Newmark Knight Frank, BGC laid out what some felt were tough terms for the brokers it has acquired. Several sources said the company required brokers to pour portions of their commissions into stock in the company and, for former Grubb & Ellis executives, made payment of their commissions contingent on whether they remained with the company after the merger what many felt was a lengthy period of time.

Daniel Geiger is reachable at Dgeiger@observer.com