The Bank of New York — temporarily knocked out of three lower Manhattan buildings on Sept. 11 — is close to signing a major lease in Brooklyn, the Daily News has learned.

The bank is negotiating deals at two locations — 470 Vanderbilt Ave. in Clinton Hill, and a new Forest City Ratner development at Atlantic Terminal Mall — according to executives close to the company. It will pick one and lease 300,000 square feet for about 1,500 employees.


The Atlantic Telecom Center at 470 Vanderbilt in Brooklyn may soon house 1,500 Bank of New York workers.
"We're looking at Brooklyn right now for a diversification," said one executive, who declined to be named.

A Bank of New York spokesman declined to comment.

The Brooklyn move comes amid demands from regulators that banks have backup sites outside Manhattan, with power from a separate source. City officials are scrambling to convince companies to pick Brooklyn or Queens instead of New Jersey.

The Vanderbilt Avenue building, known as the Atlantic Telecom Center, serves as a data center for some tenants but is also being marketed for office use.

The Carlyle Group and J.P. Morgan Chase bought it two years ago and spent $80 million on improvements. Rents run in the high $20s per square foot.

The Atlantic Terminal site won't be built for two years and will have a retail component, including a Target store, below the offices. A Forest City spokeswoman declined to comment.

A Brooklyn site would disperse the operations of a company with strong ties to downtown Manhattan. Before Sept. 11, Bank of New York occupied 2.5 million square feet of space in lower Manhattan, including its headquarters at One Wall St.

The World Trade Center attacks forced it out of 100 Church St., 101 Barclay St., and 75 Park Place, interrupting vital functions like check- and trade-clearing. BONY received criticism for having its operations too concentrated in downtown Manhattan.

After Sept. 11, the bank scrambled to find new space for more than 5,000 displaced employees. It signed 17 new leases and is now trying to unload eight of those by putting them up for sublease, according to Tenantwise.