Education-tech firm 2U to lease nearly 80K sf in Dumbo

Company will relocate from Chelsea Piers to 55 Prospect Street

Asher Abehsera and 55 Prospect Street
Asher Abehsera and 55 Prospect Street

Education-technology company 2U is expected to sign a lease this week for nearly 80,000 square feet at Dumbo Heights.

The company, which is now headquartered in 20,000 square feet at Chelsea Piers, is taking space on the upper floors of 55 Prospect Street, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“It’s a big move coming from the cool part of Chelsea to Dumbo, but I think it sort of celebrates how Brooklyn has not only grown but has been established as a creative class,” said LIVWRK‘s[TRData] Asher Abehsera, who teamed up with Kushner Companies[TRData] and RFR Holding[TRData] to redevelop the 1.2 million-square-foot Dumbo Heights campus. The partners acquired the campus from the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2013 for $375 million.

2U plans to make the move to 55 Prospect in December.

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While the Brooklyn office market – and, in particular, projects right across the river such as Dumbo Heights and Empire Stores – has seen its share of tenants relocate from Manhattan, it’s been more of a trickle than a flood.

“It was a much more measured market than what our expectations were in February of 2016,” JLL managing director Michael Shenot told the Journal.

Craig Lemle and Nick Zarnin at Savills Studley represented 2U in the deal.

Leasing activity for 2016 ended the year at 818,861 square feet, a drop of 2.5 percent from the previous year, which had been the highest on record since Cushman & Wakefield started tracking the borough in 2010. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann