NEWS

Norway’s largest lender, DNB ASA, agreed to move its North American headquarters to the skyscraper being built at 30 Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s far west side, leaving the MetLife Building in Midtown.

The Oslo-based bank will take the entire 68th floor in the 90-story tower, space that developer Related Cos. originally set aside for itself, said Jay Cross, president of Related’s Hudson Yards unit. DNB’s lease will run for 15 to 20 years, depending on certain conditions, according to Giacomo Landi, the bank’s New York-based general manager.

Related has been luring financial firms from their traditional Midtown strongholds westward to Hudson Yards, where the company is leading what it calls the biggest private real estate development in U.S. history. The project has attracted KKR & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Steven A. Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, all with current offices in Midtown. They’ll join companies such as Time Warner Inc., slated to anchor 30 Hudson Yards, and handbag maker Coach Inc., which in May opened its offices at 10 Hudson Yards, the first skyscraper completed at the site.

 ‘Biggest Challenge’

Attracting KKR late last year to 30 Hudson Yards from 9 W. 57th St., one of Manhattan’s most exclusive office skyscrapers, “sent a signal that it’s considered appropriate by the leaders of the industry to move out of Midtown” and opened the door to deals such as DNB’s, Cross said.

Neither Landi nor Cross would say what rent DNB agreed to pay at the building, under construction at West 33rd Street and 10th Avenue. At 1,296 feet (395 meters), 30 Hudson Yards would be New York’s second-tallest tower, behind lower Manhattan’s One World Trade Center. It’s scheduled to be completed in 2019.