WeWork gobbles up another office building

Co-working giant takes full office portion of Columbia Property Trust’s 149 Madison

149 Madison Avenue, Nelson Mills, and Adam Neumann (Credit: Google Maps and Getty Images)
149 Madison Avenue, Nelson Mills, and Adam Neumann (Credit: Google Maps and Getty Images)

WeWork signed a lease for the full 115,000 square feet of office space at Columbia Property Trust’s 149 Madison Avenue in Midtown South, the companies announced.

Sitting at the corner of Madison Avenue and East 32nd Street, the building stands 12 stories tall and included 6,600 square feet of retail, which Columbia said it is in active talks to lease.

Terms of the deal were not available. Brian Waterman, Scott Klau and Erik Harris at Newmark Knight Frank were the sole brokers on the deal, representing the landlord.

WeWork, which is backed by SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund, is expanding rapidly as the Japanese bank considers another investment that could be as much as $20 billion.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

By signing up, you agree to TheRealDeal Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.

That growth has not been without its pains, though. Last week, WeWork parted ways with former real estate head Mark Lapidus – who was one of the company’s earliest employees – amid a leadership shakeup in the real estate department.

Columbia Property Trust late last year bought the fee position at 149 Madison from the Schwable family for $87.7 million. In January, the 60-year leasehold on the property owned by Abramson Brothers expired, giving Columbia full control of the property.

Earlier this month, WeWork announced that it had taken all 139,000 square feet of office space at SL Green Realty’s 609 Fifth Avenue.