WeWork signed a lease for roughly 64,000 square feet at Billy Macklowe’s Hell’s Kitchen office building known as the Press.
The $16.9 billion co-working company leased the space across five upper floors at the William Macklowe Company’s 311 West 43rd Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, sources told The Real Deal.
Macklowe, along with a subsidiary of the Iowa-based Principal Financial group, bought the 15-story, 186,000-square-foot property in December for $107 million and then got to work adding new lobbies, a rooftop penthouse and an outdoor deck.
He renamed the loft-style industrial building “The Press,” a nod to its history as the former headquarters of publishing giant Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Asking rents in the building are reportedly in the mid-$60s per square foot.
Representatives for WeWork and Macklowe were not immediately available for comment.
A JLL [TRDataCustom] team led by Howard Hersch, Mitchell Konsker, Clark Finney and Matthew Astrachan is handling leasing at the property.
While it’s true that WeWork is now one of Macklowe’s tenants, it could soon be one of his competitors. The startup is preparing to launch an investment vehicle to buy its own real estate properties.
In October, investors pumped another $260 million into the company, raising its total venture capital to $1.7 billion and valuing the outfit at $16.9 billion.
Later that month, WeWork parted ways with executive vice president Sean Black after the leasing expert made disparaging comments about Jersey City, where the company had accepted tax incentives and plans to open a location in Journal Square.