Maverick developer Edward Minskoff is close to bagging his first tenant for 51 Astor Place, the spec office building he is boldly building in Cooper Square without any guaranteed tenants in hand, sources confirmed to The Commercial Observer.

Hult International Business School is in talks to take 51 Astor’s entire second floor, a roughly 55,000-square-foot space. Sources say the school could pay rents that begin in the $60s per square foot but escalate to around $100 per square foot over the life of a long term lease at the roughly 400,000-square-foot property.

The deal isn’t done just yet, however. The school is still waiting to receive approval from the New York Board of Regents, the government body that oversees all educational institutions in the state, a source said.

The deal would be the first transaction in the 12-story building, which was designed by the acclaimed Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and is currently under construction.

While Mr. Minskoff has been shopping the office property to a host of prominent tenants, including Facebook and Microsoft according to industry sources, a deal with an education tenant was preordained when he bought into the project.

Mr. Minskoff purchased the site from the university Cooper Union in 2007. The parcel used to be home to one of the school’s engineering buildings and included a requirement in its zoning that any structure Mr. Minskoff built retain about 50,000 square feet of educational use.

Though the deal, if it gets done, will be mandatory, it still is a sign of progress.

At a luncheon hosted by the Young Men’s/Women’s Real Estate Association last week in Midtown, Mr. Minskoff gave a PowerPoint presentation demonstrating the new tower’s state of the art design and features.

“This is not the biggest building I’ve ever built,” Mr. Minskoff, who was responsible for developing the eight-million-square-foot World Financial Center complex in Lower Manhattan in the 1980s, said during the luncheon. “But it’s definitely the coolest.”

During the luncheon, Mr. Minskoff revealed that he invested around $100 million of equity to finance the project, what appears to be a substantial bet on the building’s success that has revived his reputation in the city for being a real estate visionary with ironclad nerves. Leasing has slowed in the city in recent months, but activity has remained strong in the Midtown South neighborhood where 51 Astor is located, countervailing forces that tug at vastly different outcomes.

Mr. Minskoff couldn’t be reached for comment on the deal with Hult, nor could a spokeswoman for the school.

The New York branch would be Hult’s sixth location if it opens. The school currently operates two campuses in the US, in Boston and San Francisco and three elsewhere around the globe, in London, Dubai and Shanghai. The school caters to international students and offers several degrees including an MBA.

Daniel Geiger is reachable at Dgeiger@observer.com

A select group of supporters of Governor Andrew Cuomo, 20 in number, raised around $17 million to help support the Governor's agenda, as was first reported by The New York Times on Sunday.

The group, called the Committee to Save New York, provided money to help support Governor Cuomo's first 18 months in office, even funding a pro-Cuomo media campaign to help counter a barrage of anti-Cuomo advertisements funded by labor unions.

In The Commercial Observer's "Power 100" profile of Gov. Cuomo(who ranked 3rd in the 2012 list), the Governor was able to pass his first budget with little repercussions, thanks in large part to the contributions the Committee made to his media campaign.

The founding members of the group include Tishman Speyer president Rob Speyer, REBNY's Steven Spinola, and Kathryn Wylde of the Partnership for New York City. CBRE's Mary Ann Tighe is a member of The Committee to Save New York's advisory board, as is Gary LaBarbera, President, Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, according to the Committee's website.

According to paperwork obtained by The New York Times, more than two-thirds of the $17 million raised by the committee came from donors giving $250,000, "far in excess of the $60,800 that New York law permits individuals to give directly to candidates," the paper said.

This did not sit well with Bill Mahoney of the New York Public Interest Research Group, who said the committee's actions showed that wealthy donors "continue to play a disproportionate role in the state's political discourse."

Governor Cuomo's ties to the real estate community are well-established, as he has long seen development and real estate as two essential cogs in the economic prosperity of New York State.

Daniel Edward Rosen is reachable at Drosen@observer.com

HFF has helped to refinance the maturing construction and permanent loan on Claremont Corporate Center, a 41,982-square-foot Class A office building in Summit, N.J.

Proceeds from the $13.6 million 10-year, fixed rate loan secured in the refinancing were used to replace previous financing—also put in place by HFF, in 2008. The lender is Cantor Commercial Real Estate, which is helmed by executive managing director and CEO Anthony Orso. CCRE recently announced a new, $634.5 million issuance of CMBS, designed to target middle market borrowers.

For the Claremont Corporate Center loan, HFF’s team was led by senior managing director Jon Mikula. Claremont Corporate Center was developed in 2010 by owner Greenock Capital and is already 100 percent leased to five tenants, including Alterra Capital. It sits 22 miles to the west of Manhattan.

Carl Gaines is reachable at Cgaines@observer.com