Daily News lists half Downtown HQ space for sublease

From left: 4 New York Plaza and Mort Zuckerman
From left: 4 New York Plaza and Mort Zuckerman

The New York Daily News put half its 4 New York Plaza headquarters space on the sublease market, barely six months after Hurricane Sandy forced the newspaper to temporarily relocate to Midtown and New Jersey.

The newspaper’s brokerage firm, Cushman & Wakefield, listed for sublease the entire sixth floor, with 49,925 square feet, just over a week ago, data from CoStar Group show. The space is available in 30 days, the website says.

The Daily News moved out of the badly damaged, 1.07 million square foot Lower Manhattan building, owned by Edge Fund Advisors, after Sandy struck in late October. Three months ago, the publisher inked a short-term deal at 1290 Sixth Avenue in Midtown, bringing the newspaper’s entire staff under one roof for the first time since Sandy.

Repairs at 4 New York Plaza moved more quickly than expected and the building reopened on Jan. 28 although the newspaper did not move back in. The next month, Edge Fund hired office landlord Hines to launch a $60 million overhaul of the building.

The Daily News, headed by Boston Properties Executive Chairman Mort Zuckerman, signed a lease in July 2010 for floors six and seven, for a total of 99,050 square feet in a deal that runs through the end of 2027, CoStar data show.

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Representatives for the Daily News and Cushman declined to comment. Edge Fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While it was not clear why the Daily News was listing the space, virtually all of the office space in Lower Manhattan that was damaged by Sandy is back in operation, a report from the Alliance for Downtown New York shows.

“The neighborhood rebounded quickly. While there are still small pockets of issues that have to be dealt with, for the most part more than 99 percent of the office [space is] open after Sandy,” Andrew Breslau, vice president of communications for the Alliance, told The Real Deal.