Drug strike force strikes deal for space in Brookfield Place

The Drug Enforcement Agency’s New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force has inked a deal for 56,000 square feet in Brookfield Place in Lower Manhattan.

The new address for the elite task force is 250 Vesey Street, which is between West Street and the Hudson River. The combined federal, state and city force is moving from  its current location at 85 10th Avenue because the lease there is expiring, a DEA spokesperson told Crain’s.

Formed in 2004 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, the organization is tasked with fighting high-level drug trafficking operations and includes officers from the DEA, NYPD, FBI, state police, homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service and the IRS, among others. The new office is to be funded by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force, or HIDTA, a federal grant program administered by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, whose name will occupy the lease.

A number of other high profile tenants have moved into the complex of late, including Time Inc, which took a 650,000-square-foot spread at 2 Brookfield Place earlier this month. The influx comes following a $250 million revamp of the property’s retail space, which will add new restaurants, shops and reconfigure the entrance in an effort to ease connection between the complex and neighboring World Trade Center site. [Crain’s] — Julie Strickland