Media Companies Jump to Dumbo With 50K-SF Empire Stores Lease
By Terence Cullen November 22, 2016 5:33 pm
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Laundry Service and Cycle, a pair of media companies controlled by the same owner, have signed a deal to relocate from Midtown South to the Dumbo section of Brooklyn.
The subsidiaries of Wasserman Media Group will occupy about 50,000 square feet at Empire Stores—the warehouse-turned-office complex at 55 Water Street, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The companies’ new office is nearly double the 22,500 square feet they lease at 40 West 25th Street between Broadway and Avenue of the Americas, the Journal indicated. In Brooklyn, they will occupy part of the fourth and fifth floor of the 584,800-square-foot building.
“Our team works hard because we all love what we do, so I wanted to find a space where everyone would feel at home,” Jason Stein, the companies’ founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “With the restaurants, views, and Brooklyn Bridge Park, we are ready to continue creating the future of media and advertising.”
The lease is for 10 years and the tenants are slated to move to the Dumbo property early next year, per a spokeswoman for the landlord. A former coffee warehouse built during the 19th century, Empire Stores has been converted into an office complex that includes new all-glass fifth and sixth floors. Asking rent for those levels is $85 per square foot; it is $65 per square foot on the fourth floor.
Sinclair Li and Daniel Wilpon of CBRE (CBRE) represented the tenant, while Howard Hersch and Aaron Ellison of JLL (JLL) represent the landlord—a Midtown Equities-led joint venture—in deals at the property.
“Empire Stores has become known as one of the most relevant office offerings for creative tenants available in the New York marketplace today,” Hersch said in a statement via a spokeswoman. “Creative tenants are no-longer limited to the options in Manhattan. Midtown South now includes Dumbo.”
The media companies are not the first to make the jump from Midtown South to Dumbo. Los Angeles-based advertising firm 72andSunny signed a deal earlier this year to move its New York City offices to 60,000 square feet at the building from Manhattan. The redevelopment is occupied by furniture maker West Elm, which occupies about 150,000 square feet.
