More than a mile south of New York’s “Silicon Alley,” a single building on Broadway in Soho has become a hub for technology start-ups, according to Crain’s.
The building at 568 Broadway, near Prince Street, leases more than 110,000 square feet in its 12 stories to firms Foursquare, Thrillist, 10gen and ZocDoc. The firms are attracted to the Soho location, proximity to subway lines and the large, 28,000-square-foot floor plates that encourage collaboration.
Further, once one tech company takes space in the building, it becomes a magnet for similar firms. “It’s nice to be able to go upstairs or downstairs and talk to a software engineer at one of these companies and shoot them a question, and build off one another,” said Tyler Brock, a software engineer at 10gen.
The well-designed and well-located space, with its 12-foot ceilings, can also be a major recruiting tool for a tech scene starved for engineering talent, Crain’s noted. Each of the firms in the building frequently open up their space for events in an effort to show off the work environment.
Rents range from $40 to $50 per square foot, Crain’s said, but experts noted that tech firms have benefitted from a stagnant office real estate market. As the comapnies continue to move in, demand will increase and rents will rise, and they ultimately could be forced to Brooklyn like their artistic predecessors in the building. [Crain’s]