Health and wellness brand Life Time is set to open up its New York City flagship near Bryant Park, Commercial Observer has learned.
Life Time, which operates around 185 health clubs across the U.S. and Canada, has signed a 20-year lease for a 52,000-square-foot fitness and wellness club on four floors of Property & Building Corporation (PBC)’s 10 Bryant Park, according to the landlord.
Life Time’s lease brings the 865,000-square-foot building on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 40th Street — formerly known as 452 Fifth Avenue — to nearly fully leased, following tech giant Amazon’s massive 330,000-square-foot deal at the property in April, as CO previously reported.
Amazon took over its new space from London-based bank HSBC, which previously anchored the 30-story office tower until its lease expired earlier this year and it left for Tishman Speyer’s The Spiral in Hudson Yards.
“The Life Time transaction further defines the evolution for this section of Fifth Avenue and enhances the Grand Central District westward and the Bryant Park District, eastward,” JLL’s Patrick Smith, who brokered the deal for the landlord, said in a statement.
“With the upcoming openings of Shaver Hall food hall later this year, the Life Time announcement, and multiple new food and lifestyle offerings, the corridor is emerging real-time as a unique and dynamic destination,” Smith added. “This transaction is a huge win for 10 Bryant Park.”
The asking rent in the Life Time deal was not provided, but a report from CBRE found retail rents in Manhattan averaged $659 per square foot during the first quarter of 2025.
Atlantic Retail’s Joe Mastromonaco brokered the deal for the tenant. Mastromonaco and a spokesperson for Life Time did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Life Time will open in its four floors at 10 Bryant Park in December 2026. It will be the brand’s 11th location in New York City after recently signing a lease for an approximately 80,000-square-foot health club at Silverstein Properties’ Brooklyn Tower in Downtown Brooklyn, which will also open in the second half of 2026.
Like its other locations, Life Time’s new space near Bryant Park will feature amenities such as a co-ed wet suite, a steam room, a sauna, a cold-plunge pool, fitness studios, training spaces, spas, and even coworking and library areas.
In addition to Life Time’s lease, Union Square Hospitality Group is “in advanced talks” to take the final 5,000-square-foot ground-floor retail space at 10 Bryant Park, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Union Square is set to use the retail space — which received attention from vying tenants such as Jean-Georges Restaurants, Tribeca Hospitality Group and Landry’s — as a hospitality venue operated by restaurateur Danny Meyer, the source said.
News of the building’s nearly full occupancy comes after a bit of a roller coaster ride for the property in recent years.
The Israel-based PBC, which bought 452 Fifth Avenue from HSBC in 2010 for $330 million, planned to sell the property in December 2021 to Innovo Property Group for around $855 million as part of PBC’s plans to offload most of its $2 billion in U.S. real estate, as CO previously reported.
But the sale failed in 2022 after Innovo founder Andrew Chung couldn’t come up with the cash and several macroeconomic factors — such as rising interest rates, concerns over inflation and economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — affected back-to-office deals.
The failed deal, combined with HSBC leaving the property, led PBC to pursue a full refinancing and repositioning of the 1980s-built tower. In addition to a new lobby entrance off Fifth Avenue and various new amenities, PBC rebranded and renamed the building to 10 Bryant Park in an effort to affiliate the property with the now-burgeoning Bryant Park office area.
Also as part of its rebranding strategy, PBC decided to pursue a unique wellness and fitness retailer to benefit the building’s tenants.
“This [Life Time] lease represents the capstone of a remarkable repositioning journey that has elevated this property into one of New York City’s premier office destinations,” PBC-US CEO Eli Elefant said in a statement. “Its leasing success underscores the lasting appeal of well-located, thoughtfully amenitized assets in the heart of Manhattan.”
Other tenants of 10 Bryant Park include Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, private equity firm 17Capital, investment firm Brighton Park Capital, alternative investment firm HBK Capital Management, investment firm Generate Capital and asset manager Tilden Park Capital.
Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.