After losing out on a prime space at One World Trade Center last year, WeWork has finally inked a massive lease deal in the Financial District.
The flexible office space giant said Wednesday it would occupy about 200,000 square feet at Jack Resnick & Sons’ 199 Water Street, occupying floors 30 to 35. Within the 35-story, 1.1 million square-foot downtown building, WeWork said its floor plates will span from almost 18,000 square feet to 37,000 square feet. It did not say what kind of occupants would move into its refurbished space.
It’s a return to the neighborhood after being publicly spurned by the Durst Organization in its bid for up to 12 floors of space at One World Trade Center. The landlord said there were better offers in hand.
WeWork’s head of real estate development Granit Gjonbalaj said the firm had identified “incredible demand” for Financial District office space. It is the firm’s seventh location in the neighborhood. “This will be one of our largest locations in Manhattan,” he said in a statement.
WeWork was represented internally in the deal, Jack Resnick & Sons were represented internally and by a team at Cushman & Wakefield.
The landlord and tenant are well acquainted, with WeWork having leased just under 70,000 square feet at Jack Resnick & Son’s 880 Third Avenue.
Crain’s reported Wednesday that WeWork was also in negotiations for 100,000 square feet at Silverstein Properties’ 120 Broadway.
WeWork, which was valued at $47 billion earlier this year thanks to another investment by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, has signed a series of big deals already this year. In January, it signed leases for 110,000 square feet across four locations for its HQ by WeWork platform, service that provides spaces for companies without WeWork branding.
The company’s lease at 199 Water Street dwarfs deals recently inked by competitors. Spaces, the Dutch co-working firm owned by IWG signed an 84,000 square foot lease at 31 Penn Plaza in January. Days later, Industrious also signed new leases at three locations. It was also revealed Knotel had signed 180,000 square feet in two months.
Other tenants in the at 199 Water Street include Howard Hughes Corporation, Epsilon Data Management, BGC Partners and Allied World Insurance Company. Jack Resnick & Sons also announced on Wednesday that it inked two other tenants to leases totaling about 85,000 square feet.