Versant Lease at Former NY Times Building Occupies 164K SF

Versant, Comcast’s corporate cable channel spinoff, signed a lease over the summer for a temporary home across 164,545 square feet at the former New York Times building at 229 West 43rd Street, according to Savills’ third-quarter Manhattan office leasing report.

The move, which occurred in August, marked a major milestone for MSNBC, which moved out of its headquarters and studios at NBC’s iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Adweek cited a memo to the company’s staff from Jeff Mayzurk, Versant’s president of operations and technology, saying that the new location, known internally at Versant as “summer camp,” was chosen “due to its studio and production space and its central location.” Despite this, Versant considers the move temporary, and is reportedly still searching for a permanent location.

The length of the lease and the asking rent were unclear, as was the reason the new location will only be temporary. When the Martha Graham Dance Company moved to neighboring 1501 Broadway in May of this year, Crain’s New York Business reported that asking rents in that building started at $58 per square foot.

It is unclear who the brokers were for the Versant lease, although JLL is the building’s leasing team, according to the building’s website. 

The owner of the building’s office portion is Columbia Property Trust. The building’s first four floors and two below-grade ones are retail-oriented and separately owned, having been purchased in August 2025 by Forum at Times Square for just $28 million, according to Crain’s New York Business. 

Ironically, an adviser on that deal, Jay Miller of BayBridge Real Estate Capital, told Crain’s at the time that the location’s appeal was enhanced by the possibility of a proposed casino right across the street. Those hopes were dashed two weeks ago, as CO previously reported.

The building – which occupies 682,843 square feet, according to Property Shark – served as the home of The New York Times from 1913 to 2007. It received a landmark designation in 2001, and underwent an extensive renovation around 2011. 

CO reported in 2022 that BuzzFeed, seeking to cut its office footprint, relocated to 107,000 square feet in the building that it planned to share with its new parent company, Complex Networks. Both companies have since relocated again, with Buzzfeed shrinking its footprint further to 42,210 square feet at 50 West 23rd Street.

Columbia Property Trust, Versant Media and JLL did not immediately respond to requests for information. 

Larry Getlen can be reached at lgetlen@commercialobserver.com.