Not disappearing: Snapchat expands office in old NYT building

Snap Inc. now has 121K sf at 229 W. 43rd

229 West 43rd Street and Evan Spiegel (Credit: Getty Images)
229 West 43rd Street and Evan Spiegel (Credit: Getty Images)

Fresh off its $3.4 billion IPO, Snap Inc. — parent company of Snapchat — is expanding its footprint at the old New York Times building.

The company inked a deal to lease 26,000 square feet at 229 West 43rd Street, where it will now occupy 121,000 square feet, the Commercial Observer reported. The lease, which expires in June 2027, was signed in February and disclosed ahead of landlord Columbia Property Trust’s earnings report Thursday.

“They came to us and wanted some additional space and said they would make a really long-term commitment and make this their home if we could provide it,” said James Fleming, the REIT’s CFO, speaking during an earnings call. “We were able to move out a couple of smaller tenants to make room for [Snap] and that really enabled them to make this commitment to the building.”

Snap leased the 15th and 16th floors in 2014 and last year added 33,360 square feet on the fourth and seventh floors, which had an asking rent of $70 per square foot, according to data from CoStar.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Columbia Property Trust [TRDataCustom] bought the 12-story, 481,000-square-foot office condo at the top of the building from Blackstone Group for $516 million in 2015. Kushner Companies owns the four-floor retail portion — or 250,000 square feet — which it bought for $296 million in 2015.

Snap also has a 5,000-square-foot pop-up space at 5 East 59th Street[CO]E.B. Solomont

(To view our office leasing Deal Sheet, click here)