UPDATE: Havas Takes 260,000 Square Feet at 200 and 205 Hudson Street
By Daniel Edward Rosen April 2, 2012 11:16 am
reprintsGlobal French advertising company Havas Group has finalized a deal to take 260,000 square feet at 200 and 205 Hudson Street, creating a NYC “campus” for the firm, it was announced today.
The company will be relocating from its current offices at 350 Hudson Street, as was first reported last autumn by The Commercial Observer.
Havas will be taking 225,000 square feet on floors 2 through 8 at 200 Hudson Street. It will also be taking 31,000 square feet of office space on the 9th floor of 205 Hudson Street, along with 4,000 square feet of storage space at 1 Hudson Street. The firm will be consolidating its 1,200 employees in this move, and will be bringing its creative and media teams under the same roof.
Asking rents at both 200 and 205 Hudson Street are in the mid to upper $40s per square foot, said Trinity Real Estate, the owners of both properties.
David Falk and Jason Greenstein of Newmark (NMRK) Knight Frank represented Havas in the deal. Jason Pizer, president of Trinity Real Estate, and Marc Packman represented the company in-house. Robert Constable and Andrew Peretz, both of Cushman & Wakefield (CWK), also represented Trinity Real Estate in the deal.
The new offices will include an in-house production studio, an “innovation laboratory,” a theater and a cafe, Havas said in a press release. A good portion of Havas’ New York based agencies will be moving into 200 and 205 Hudson Square in 2013 in a move to deliver “operational efficiencies” and reduce costs.
This move follows the company’s recent decision to rebrand its agencies from Euro RSCG to Havas Worldwide, effective September 1st of this year.
“This move and the rebranding reflect our desire to reinforce the structural advantage and superior integration of Havas compared to the other big communication groups. Putting the media and creative agencies in the same building as we have in other parts of the world such as Paris, Chicago, Boston and Shanghai is another important step to delivering better for our clients,” said David Jones, the global CEO of Havas, in a statement today.
The company made a similar consolidation move in Paris after it purchased Le Madone tower to bring over 2,300 employees into the same building, The WSJ reports.
The Commercial Observer originally reported that the company would be taking 150,000 square feet at 200 Hudson Square with an eye on possibly committing to more space.
UPDATE (12:14 p.m.):
The Commercial Observer spoke with Mr. Pizer, who said that Havas will be putting its stamp on the lobby of 200 Hudson Square.
“They are going to do some big time branding with the lobby and the signage in the building,” said Mr. Pizer. “That was very big for them coming over.”
In addition, Havas will also have outdoor deck space. To accommodate Havas’ massive new lease deal, Trinity Real Estate was able to free up a floor from Getty Images, while also using the space recently vacated by a group of printing firms, which had since departed for Queens.
With Havas as its anchor tenant, 200 Hudson Street is now 100 percent leased up, said Mr. Pizer.
Euro RSCG first moved to Hudson Street over 20 years ago, and the appeal of the area’s growing tech landscape appealed to the company, said Annette Stover, global chief of staff for EURO RSCG Worldwide.
“It’s been great to see how the neighborhood has thrived and attracted more and more creative companies in media, communications and technology,” said Ms. Stover in an email to The Commercial Observer.
drosen@observer.com
