Apple (AAPL) inked a deal to take 220,000 square feet at Vornado Realty Trust’s 11 Penn Plaza, nearly a month after it was rumored to be eyeing space in the 1.15 million-square-foot property, a source with knowledge of the deal confirmed.
The tech giant signed a five-year lease with Vornado for the 11th to 14th floors of the 23-story building between West 31st and West 32nd Streets, taking over space formerly occupied by department store Macy’s, The New York Post reported.
Apple, which has a 52,000-square-foot office at 100-104 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District, started negotiating for space in 11 Penn Plaza after it lost out to social media giant Facebook at Vornado’s nearby Farley Building, the Post reported last month. Facebook — which recently nabbed 1.5 million square feet in Hudson Yards — is in talks to lease the entire 740,000-square-foot development at the former James A. Farley Post Office.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple will take over the space from Macy’s, which has been headquartered in the Penn Plaza building for years. The struggling department store recently announced it would shutter 125 stores, lay off 2,000 workers and consolidate its offices around the county to New York City in an effort to cut costs.
Macy’s will move the majority of its operations to Long Island City, Queens — where it leased 850,000 square feet last year — and keep a smaller presence near Penn Plaza at its Herald Square flagship, Crain’s New York Business reported.
Peter Riguardi, Martin Horner and Kirill Azovtsev of JLL (JLL) represented Apple while Vorando’s Glen Weiss handled it in-house. A spokesman for JLL declined to comment and a spokeswoman for Vornado did not immediately respond to a request for comment.