By: Serach Nissim
Former publisher, Meredith which was acquired by IAC and is now known as Dotdash Meredith, is downsizing its office space in the Big Apple.
As reported by the NY Post, the new combined company will be consolidating its space, at Brookfield Place, the shopping center and office space in Battery Park City. Meredith’s former oversized headquarters, located at 225 Liberty St., will be up for grabs. The 331,509 square feet of office space, which they have a lease for till December 2032, is now being offered for sublease, with JLL Realty’s team of executive vice president Brad Lane, executive managing director Todd Stracci, and managing director Brett Harvey tapped to market the sublease. Dotdash Meredith’s available space is one of the largest subleases available on the market.
Notwithstanding, there is a lot of competition to fill office space. Manhattan is already flooded with office space available for lease as well as sublease. Per the Post, other downtown sublease blocks to hit the market in the second half of 2022 include 58,169 square feet of space from MediaMath’s 106,000 square feet at 4 World Trade Center. Also, Orchard is trying to sublease 65,589 square feet at 195 Broadway. One World Trade Center still has seven floors of around 48,500 square feet each available for sublease from Condé Nast. The building also had the smaller 34,382 square feet sublease up for grabs on the 88th floor from Hyperscience. Better Mortgage is also struggling and hopes to ditch its 44,039 square feet of space on lease till 2026, on the 57th floor of at 3 World Trade Tower.
Real estate company Savills told the Post, that downtown is still losing office tenants left and right. At the end of the second quarter of 2022, downtown had 6.9 million square feet available with an overall asking rent of $60.27 per foot. The year earlier, there was just 5.4 million square feet available at $59.60 per foot. Downtown Manhattan now has a commercial availability rate of 23.1%, up from 20.6% last year.
As per the Post, the space that Dotdash Meredith is trying to sublease includes high-end office furniture, work stations and conference rooms. Sources say that the seventh through ninth floors at 225 Liberty can be leased together, or as single or partial floors. The space is considered a bargain, with asking rent of $49 per foot—that’s roughly half the price of smaller direct leases available directly from Brookfield.
Just several blocks away, the former Dotdash offices at 28 Liberty St. are also available for sublease. That vacancy includes 68,230 square feet of available space, with seating space for roughly 400 people, on the seventh and eighth floors of the 60-story skyscraper. The floors can also be leased separately or together, with asking rents there at $50 per foot.
Meredith had tried to sublease the 225 Liberty space previously, but is trying again now that the media and internet brand IAC, deal was finalized. A spokeswoman commented saying the restructuring is typical for this kind of a merger. Led by Chairman Barry Dillar, IAC (InterActiveCorp) had purchased Meridith, the famed Time Inc magazine publisher, in a $2.7 billion deal reached last October.
