Amazon is continuing to boost its presence in New York City with a big new lease.
The e-commerce giant is taking roughly 300,000 square feet of space in Queens’ Rentar Plaza, according to loan database TreppWire. The servicer on the $132 million loan backed by the complex submitted a note to the database that said Amazon would be taking over the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 109,000-square-foot space, plus the remaining 190,000 square feet of vacant space in the property.
Long Island-based Rentar Development owns the 1.6 million-square-foot office, retail and warehouse complex at 66-26 Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village. The Met’s lease was set to expire in July, and the Amazon lease brings the property to full occupancy.
The City of New York is the property’s largest tenant with more than 500,000 square feet of space, mainly used for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
Representatives for Amazon and the Met did not respond to requests for comment, and representatives for Rentar Development declined to comment.
Rentar Development is led by Dennis Ratner and Felice Bassin, and the firm has developed more than 4 million square feet of mainly retail and industrial property in the New York area.
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Amazon famously backed out of plans to build part of its second headquarters in Long Island City last February, but the company has since made multiple moves to boost its presence in New York. It signed a lease for 335,000 square feet in December at SL Green’s 410 10th Avenue on the Far West Side, and it has been in talks to lease 770,000 square feet at RXR Realty and LBA Logistics’ new warehouse development in Maspeth as well.
Amazon is also considering buying the Lord & Taylor building from WeWork for close to $1 billion. The famed building is one of the few remaining signs of the co-working company’s lavish spending under ex-CEO Adam Neumann.
Write to Eddie Small at es@therealdeal.com