805 Third Avenue
Meredith Corporation, publishers of Ladie’s Home Journal and its perennial diet cover stories, is finally slimming down.
The company will move from two buildings near Grand Central into a svelte new space at Third Avenue and 50th Street. This nonetheless marks one of the year’s biggest leasing transactions, consisting of nine full floors and more than 212,594 square feet.
The lease is for more than 10 years and asking rents were in the mid-$50s, according to the New York Post.
Meredith currently occupies an awkward combo of offices at 125 Park Avenue and 375 Lexington Avenue, which it acquired from German publisher Gruner + Jahr in 2005. The company currently leases more than 300,000 square feet of space, though it only occupies about 230,000 of that, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The publisher was previously rumored to be checking out a few spaces in the immediate area, including 105 East 42nd Street and 205 East 42nd Street, the Post has reported.
But it was Charles S. Cohen who was especially keen to score the new tenant. “When the opportunity presented itself to bring Meredith to 805 Third Avenue as our anchor tenant,” the landlord said in a statement, “I was determined to create the kind of corporate environment needed to get this deal done.”
As for the Iowa-based company, which also owns 14 TV stations and a book publisher, it doesn’t necessarily plan to stay slim for long. “Meredith wanted a Class A building in a convenient location, a strong, financially stable ownership, and flexibility for future growth,” landlord rep Bruce Mosler, co-chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, said in a statement.
The glass tower in the once-quaint area was so controversial in the 1980s that it led many to call for a rezoning of midtown. Nothing like a decorating challenge for the publishers of Better Homes & Gardens.
Mr. Mosler, Arthur Mirante and David Glassman, all of Cushman & Wakefield, represented the landlord. From the same firm, Edward Weiss, Joseph Cabrera and Robert Thuss represented the tenant.
