Brooklyn’s Dock 72 Nabs Second Tenant, Website Food52
By Celia Young October 26, 2021 6:25 pm
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Food52, an online cooking and home website, plans to consolidate its Chelsea offices at Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard — the building’s second tenant and first since it opened in 2019.
The culinary brand snagged a 12-year lease for 42,000 square feet spanning the entire 13th floor in Rudin Management Company and Boston Properties’ 675,000-square-foot glass office building, the New York Post first reported. The firm plans to relocate from Manhattan during the second half of 2022, according to Rudin.
A spokesperson for Rudin declined to comment on the asking rent, but Dock 72 was asking rents in the mid-$50s to high-$60s per square foot as of February 2020, CBRE determined.
Food52’s move to the ship-shaped office tower breaks a dry spell for the massive project on Brooklyn’s waterfront. The building opened in 2019 with its 220,000-square-foot anchor, and only, tenant, WeWork (WE). The coworking giant saw its valuation fall in a disastrous first attempt at going public that year — which the company successfully managed to do in an $8 billion deal last week.
The glass tower struggled to sign tenants since — which Rudin previously blamed on delays in its amenity space opening — that only worsened during the pandemic. The slow leasing led to Boston Properties declaring a $60.5 million impairment charge in its fourth-quarter 2020 earnings, Bisnow reported.
Vice Media was reportedly looking to break the leasing freeze by planning to consolidate its three Brooklyn offices there in August. A spokesperson for Vice told CO at the time that it was “exploring all options for new office space” and hasn’t signed any lease yet.
“Bringing an innovative digital company like Food52 speaks volumes about the appeal of Dock 72 and our vision to create Brooklyn’s most advanced workplace,” Michael Rudin, the executive vice president of Rudin Management Company, said in a statement. “It … shows that despite the past year and a half that companies like Food52 are growing and still want to be in New York and in the office.”
Food52 is relocating from its current digs at 122 West 26th Street to the 16-story Dock 72, the first ground-up office development in decades in the 200-acre Brooklyn Navy Yard, according to its website.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Helen Paul and Rico Murtha handled the deal for Food52. Rudin’s Robert Steinman, Boston Properties’ Andrew Levin, C&W’s Joe Cirone, Ron Lo Russo and Patrick Dugan and CBRE’s Sacha Zarba and Freddie Fackelmayer represented the landlords.
Boston Properties, C&W, Zarba and Fackelmayer did not respond to requests for comment.
Celia Young can be reached at cyoung@commercialobserver.com.
