VTS Doubles Space as It Takes Additional Floor at 114 West 41st Street
By Liam La Guerre June 30, 2017 12:28 pm
reprints
Growing digital leasing and asset management platform VTS recently signed a 31,700-square-foot deal to renew and double its office footprint at Equity Office’s 114 West 41st Street just a year after moving into the building, Commercial Observer has learned.
The tech firm renewed the lease for its 15,769-square-foot 11th floor and has taken the entire 15,931-square-foot 10th floor of the 22-story building between Avenue of the Americas and Broadway in the new deal. It started occupying the 10th floor earlier this month, according to Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer Ryan Masiello. The asking rent in the seven-year deal was $75 per square foot.
Jim Wenk of JLL (JLL) and Patrick Heeg of Transwestern brokered the deal for VTS. Scott Silverstein and Zachary Freeman represented the landlord in-house, alongside a Newmark (NMRK) Knight Frank team of Erik Harris, Scott Klau, Ben Shapiro and Zach Weil.
“The progressive design, stylish amenity space and collaborative environment that we have created through the repositioning of 114 West 41st Street proved to be the perfect fit for a cutting-edge tech company like VTS,” Silverstein said in prepared remarks. “We are pleased that we could accommodate the company’s impressive growth.”
VTS expanded its space because it’s business is growing fast, Masiello said. (The company previously based at 142 West 36th Street). Last November, the firm merged with rival Hightower in a transaction valued at $300 million, as was widely reported at the time. Hightower cut its lease at 176 Grand Street between Centre Market Place and Mulberry Street short last year, as CO recently reported.
From the first half of 2016, when its platform had about 3 billion square feet of properties, VTS now has more than 6 billion square feet of space on its platform. And the five-year-old company now has 170 workers in New York City and 200 globally. (Hightower was established in 2013.)
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoUv6TIwY-I&w=560&h=315]With the new deal, VTS redesigned its 11th floor while building out its 10th floor. The new office space is centered around open social spaces to encourage collaboration. There are surfboards on the walls, a Ping-Pong table and karaoke machine, as one would expected of a startup tech company. In addition, there are conference rooms named after surfing spots and mountains, as the founders of VTS are surfers and Hightower’s founders like to hike.
“I think [the office] really just embodies two world-class, innovative teams coming together,” Masiello told CO. “It’s embodies a fun, creative culture.”
