X Corp. Subleases 35K SF of Chelsea HQ to MoneyLion
By Abigail Nehring February 27, 2024 12:36 pm
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X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, handed over a chunk of its Chelsea headquarters to a subletter, according to its broker, CBRE (CBRE).
Fintech company MoneyLion signed a six-year sublease with X for 35,384 square feet on the fourth floor of Columbia Property Trust’s conjoined 245 West 17th Street and 249 West 17th Street, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Asking rent was $68 per square foot, the source said.
MoneyLion — a mobile banking platform that launched in 2013 — currently occupies 10,966 square feet on two floors of 30 West 31st Street, according to the source and a spokesperson for CBRE.
In 2022, MoneyLion acquired consumer finance networking firm Even Financial, and will now relocate and combine its West 21st Street office with Even’s 11,935 square feet at 50 West 23rd Street under one roof on West 17th Street, the source said.
Twitter had occupied more than three-fourths of the 281,000-square-foot property since 2014 but put a full floor on the sublet market in 2022 as it shifted its real estate portfolio. However, after Elon Musk bought the social media company and renamed it X, it put all 200,000 square feet of its space up for sublease early last year as part of Musk’s cost-cutting measures.
It’s unclear how much of X’s space is still available to sublet.
The deal is welcome news for Columbia Property Trust, which last February defaulted on $1.7 billion worth of commercial mortgage-backed loans tied to seven office buildings across the country, including the West 17th Street property, 315 Park Avenue South and 229 West 43rd Street. Columbia also saw the Chelsea office building’s mortgage downgraded by Moody’s in September after X stopped paying rent, Crain’s New York Business reported.
Cornerstone Real Estate Group’s Eric Ladden and Olmstead Properties’ Jason Birk and Steven Marvin arranged the deal for MoneyLion. CBRE’s William Iacovelli, Sacha Zarba, Lauren Crowley Corrinet, Elliot Bok and Connor DeSimone represented X.
“The space formerly housing X Corp./Twitter was ideal for MoneyLion, given its central location in the heart of Chelsea and the high-end installation already in place,” Iacovelli said in a statement.
Ladden, Birk and Marvin declined to comment.
Furniture chain Room & Board occupies the ground-floor space of the property.
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
