AI Firm OpenAI Inks Deal for 90K-SF Office at Kushner’s Puck Building

Artificial intelligence firm OpenAI has signed a major lease for 90,000 square feet at Kushner Companies’ Puck Building in SoHo.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, will open its first New York City office in the building at 295 Lafayette Street, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.

The length of the lease and asking rent was unclear, but a report from Newmark found office rents in NoHo and SoHo averaged $102.37 per square foot during the third quarter of 2024.

San Francisco-based OpenAI began hunting for a New York office earlier this year, with a Newmark team of Christina Clark, Steven Rotter and Ben Shapiro representing the firm.

A spokesperson for Kushner did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear who brokered the deal for Kushner.

OpenAI will join a name it’s familiar with at the Puck Building in venture capital firm Thrive Capital, which has its office at the tower and just led a $6.6 million funding round for OpenAI, according to WSJ.

The new deal comes after OpenAI signed a lease for an entire six-story tower in San Francisco last month — the city’s largest office lease so far in 2024, according to WSJ. AI businesses have also signed 57 office leases this year in San Francisco, which has become a hot spot for the artificial intelligence industry since the pandemic, WSJ reported, citing data from JLL.

And it’s not just the Bay Area that AI companies are looking to. Major firms like Anthropic and Palantir have been taking space in cities such as New York City, Denver, Atlanta and Seattle, WSJ reported.

AI firms’ search for physical office space is likely indicative of an industry needing the traditional advantages of an office, like collaboration and company culture, brokers previously told CO.

Also in New York City, e-commerce company Rokt expanded its New York City headquarters at 175 Varick Street by 34,000 square feet, and human relations company Rippling has already subleased a 69,000-square-foot office from Spotify at 4 World Trade Center, as CO previously reported.

(Disclosure: Joseph Meyer, chairman of Commercial Observer owner Observer Media, is married to Nicole Kushner Meyer, president of Kushner Companies.)

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