Alexandra Farcas 
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has recently signed a lease at SL Green Realty Corp.’s 1185 Avenue of the Americas. China’s largest bank will occupy a little under 100,000 square feet of Midtown Manhattan office space at this new location.
Financial details of the deal were not made available, but The Real Deal reports that a recent lease in the building came at an asking price of $75 per square foot. A representative from SL Green declined to comment and a spokesperson for ICBC did not respond to the newspaper’s requests.
Other tenants in the 1.1-million-square-foot, 42-story office tower near Rockefeller Center include 21st Century Fox, Hess Corporation and Amazon.
It is unclear whether ICBC will relocate its headquarters from Trump Tower to 1185 Sixth Avenue. The bank is currently Trump Tower’s third biggest tenant, right after Gucci and the Trump Organization, taking up around 20,000 square feet on the 20th floor of the building. According to Forbes, it forks over an estimated $2 million a year for this space.
The bank’s lease at Trump Tower is set to expire in October 2019 and the situation is surrounded by unprecedented controversy, as negotiating a new one could mean a conflict of interest for Trump. The Chinese government is the majority owner of ICBC and if a new lease is more favorable to the Trump Org., it could be considered a violation of the emoluments clause of the U.S. constitution. This clause prevents U.S. officials from receiving gifts from any king, prince, or foreign state.
