Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Jay Habermann with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Jay Habermann – Goldman Sachs
Hey, good morning, I’m here with (inaudible 00:45:13) as well. Doug and Mike, you guys gave pretty elaborate details on your 2009 guidance, and obviously assume the Lehman space and Heller Ehrman does remain vacant for the full year? And, you also talked about perhaps 70% of the space, perhaps some interest thus far for the Heller Ehrman thus far. Can you give us some updates, just in terms of where the Lehman space might stand in terms of tenant potential interest, and then, have you even had conversations yet with the potentially the private equity firms looking at that (inaudible 00:45:44) management business?
Doug Linde
Well, let me give you the context of why we think the space may be down during 2009, which is that, I’ll use the space at Times Square Tower as sort of a starting point, which is if you’re a 100,000 square foot tenant and you’re looking to make a commitment, you’re probably not looking to make a commitment in two months because you have to be much further out in front of your space requirements.
So, the tenants we’re talking to our tenants who are looking to take space at the end of 2009 or in the beginning of 2010. Which is why, even though we may have great activity, and we may actually be in a position where we can have a lease signed and have a commitment, we may not actually see rent commencement until sometime in 2010. With regards to the 399 space and Lehman Brothers, we do not believe that the space that is currently being utilized by effectively their asset management groups is long-term space, because quite frankly, most of their users are out of the building, and these are relatively small compared to the whole.
So, we do anticipate that we’re going to get the space back. It’s possible that we may actually receive some income in 2009 from Lehman Brothers, because until they get out of all the space they don’t have the ability to reject the lease, and the good news is that when they went into bankruptcy we did not have any past due rent, so they are current on their obligations with us and they are required to remain current on a going forward basis. So, as long as they’re in the space we’re going to receive rent. We really just don’t have any clarity on how long that’s going to be.
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