Bridgewater Set to Sign Lease for First NYC Office at 295 Fifth Avenue

Bridgewater Associates is all lined up to close a deal on its first New York City office.

The hedge fund is set to lease office space at Tribeca Investment Group, Meadow Partners and PGIM Real Estate’s office tower at 295 Fifth Avenue, a source with knowledge of the deal confirmed. The deal would be Bridgewater’s first U.S. outpost outside of its Westport, Conn., headquarters, which it plans to keep.

The deal has not yet closed, the source said. 

Spokespeople for Bridgewater, Tribeca, Meadow and PGIM did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg first reported the news.

The news comes as a surprising change for Bridgewater, which under founder Ray Dalio previously saw all of its U.S. employees permanently work out of its Connecticut office. The firm’s current CEO, Nir Bar Dea, has worked to change the company’s old-school ways — starting with a new office.

The company’s New York outpost would allow employees to have more “flexibility on location,” while Bridgewater’s headquarters and most of its employees would remain in Connecticut, according to Bloomberg.

Pending the new deal’s closure, Bridgewater is set to move into the recently renovated 17-story, 700,000-square-foot 295 Fifth Avenue, where tenant law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan signed a 132,000-square-foot lease in November 2023. It’s unclear how much space Bridgewater will take.

Bridgewater isn’t the first finance-related tenant to go after renovated office buildings in Manhattan. In August, Daiwa Capital Markets signed a 20-year lease for 44,100 square feet at 1251 Avenue of the Americas, which received a new lobby and elevators in 2022, according to the building’s website.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.