WeWork takes 159K sf at Kato’s Tower 49

$16B co-working company already operates space at nearby 300 Park

From left: Tower 49 and WeWork's Adam Neumann
From left: Tower 49 and WeWork's Adam Neumann

UPDATED, Aug. 9, 7:30 a.m.: WeWork signed a lease for 159,300 square feet of office space at Kato International’s Tower 49 in Midtown East, The Real Deal has learned. 

A spokesperson for the co-working company told TRD that it will occupy 10 floors in the 45-story, 750,000-square-foot office building at 12 East 49th Street. The space, which includes 116,000 usable square feet, is expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2017.

WeWork [TRDataCustom] already operates a co-working space a block away from Tower 49, at Tishman Speyer’s 300 Park Avenue. The company currently operates 32 co-working locations in New York City, according to its website, and earlier this year opened its first co-living space at Rudin Management’s 110 Wall Street.

Asking rents in the building range from the mid-$70s to north of $100 per square foot, according to CoStar data.

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Last month, TRD took a closer look at the logic behind the company’s $16 billion valuation.

Kato, a Japanese real estate firm, bought Tower 49 for $301 million in 1986 – at the time the highest price ever paid for a Manhattan office building on a per-square-foot basis. While many other Japanese firms that scooped up Manhattan skyscrapers in the 1980s subsequently sold them, Kato held on to the property.

Other tenants in the building include the Major League Baseball Players Association and private equity firm Advent International.

A representative for Kato did not immediately respond to a request for comment.