Video: Andrew Essex Offers Tenant’s Perspective on Lower Manhattan
Just how hot is Lower Manhattan? So hot, so in demand and so desirable that the advertising firm Droga5 (a $100 million business and the 10th fastest growing business in the city) decided to eschew the normal Madison Avenue address for new offices at the World Trade Center.
Earlier this month, Droga5 Vice Chairman Andrew Essex explained the move at Commercial Observer‘s breakfast panel discussion on development in Lower Manhattan in honor of the launch of CO‘s 2014 Owners Magazine. “We were open to anything,” Mr. Essex said on the panel (which also included Dennis Friedrich of Brookfield (BN) Properties, Mary Ann Tighe of CBRE (CBRE) and Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties). “The idea of taking an advertising firm—a young, technology-driven advertising firm—to Wall Street seemed counterintuitive. And frankly when we told the staff about it they were not particularly excited.”
But after seeing the dazzling waterfront the staff was converted. Now, if you want to see that tattooed, hipster, largely-Williamsburg-residing staff making their commute, “check out the 8:40 ferry.”
