Now that WeWork is worth $10 billion, the company is going all suit and tie. The shared-office provider signed a sublease for 110,000 square feet at Tishman Speyer’s Colgate Building at 300 Park Avenue in Midtown.
WeWork agreed to sublease three floors near the middle of the 770,000-square-foot building that anchor tenant Colgate-Palmolive has had on the market for more than a year, according to sources familiar with the deal.
Colliers International’s Brian Given represented Colgate along with colleagues Sheena Gohil and Steve Jaray. A representative for WeWork declined comment.
The company got its start providing short-term coworking space to Tenants On 34th Street near the Empire State Building and Soho. It has expanded its footprint in Midtown South and moved into markets in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.
But the white-hot startup has been creeping northward into the city’s traditional office markets with recent leases at Himmel + Meringoff’s 1460 Broadway in Times Square and the Durst Organization’s 205 East 42nd Street.
“They’re growing as they’re realizing people are embracing this model in areas where you wouldn’t normally think they would,” said Savills Studley senior managing director Bill Montana, who was not affiliated with the deal. “They continue to push the envelope, first with Bryant Park and now 300 Park. That’s a pretty conservative, entrenched business district.”
WeWork has been the city’s most active tenant through the first half of the year, signing leases totaling nearly 550,000 square feet, according to Crain’s.