The Real Deal New York

111 Eighth Avenue is an Art Deco building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The 2.9 million-square-foot building occupies a full city block bounded by Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 15th and 16th Streets. Architecture firm Lusby Simpson of Abbott, Merkt & Co. designed the building for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which completed it in 1932. 111 Eighth Avenue initially operated as a freight and storage hub. When railroad operations dwindled in Manhattan at the turn of the century, it became the headquarters of the Port Authority until the government agency moved to the first World Trade Center complex in 1970. Taconic Investment Partners acquired it in 1998 as part of a portfolio of assets that also included 95 and 99 Wall Street and 100 William Street. At the time, warehouse tenants occupied much of the property and Midtown South was not considered a white-collar business district. The buildings printing and warehouse tenants moved out and Taconic repositioned it as office space geared to media and technology companies. In 2010, Google, one of the buildings tenants, acquired 111 Eighth Avenue for $1.77 billion from Taconic. The real estate investment firm continued to manage the property on Googles behalf, as of September 2015. -GB & TA