HuffPo Bloggers Will Soon Shop More at Trader Joe’s
By Laura Kusisto January 18, 2011 8:50 pm
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The lefty blog that your neighbor contributes to, The Huffington Post, plans to set up new digs in one of Chelsea’s most desirable buildings.
Staffers have been told that the high-end aggregator is moving to 675 Sixth Avenue, the Mattel Building. Plans are to move in May, staffers told The Observer. HuffPo has been hiring bright young bloggers (and even the odd reporter) like there’s actually money in online journalism. That just might be true—at least for a Web site that surpassed 40 million unique visitors a month in March.
The underpaid (but well-fed) army will move from a spot over Dean and Deluca at 560 Broadway, to a new office over discount gourmet Trader Joe’s. The landmarked building at Sixth Avenue and 22nd Street was once the Adams Dry Goods store. The upper floors were converted to office spaces in 1986 under the ownership of Israel Taub‘s Chelsea Green, and Mattel signed on as an anchor tenant shortly afterward.
Of course, there’s the familiar tale of Barnes & Noble, which signed a mega-lease in the building in 1994. Trader Joe’s took over part of the space after the bookstore shuttered due to a decline in sales precipitated in large part by, well, online media.
No office space at 675 Sixth Avenue is currently available, according to MrOfficeSpace.com. The Gap, which had design offices in the building, is set to move out in 2012, as it consolidates its headquarters into 265,083 square feet at 40 Worth Street. Mattel also has traditionally maintained some offices and showrooms there.
UPDATE: A spokesman says the company is not ready to talk about any deal.
lkusisto@observer.com
