Yelp, the online review website used by millions of New Yorkers and tourists to navigate the Big Apple, is finalizing a 140,000-square-foot office in the city, The Real Deal has learned. The company is in advanced discussions with the Sapir Organization and CIM Group to take the entire 14th and 16th floors of the 30-story tower at 11 Madison Avenue, located between 24th and 25th streets.
Paul Milunec and Scott Gamber of CBRE represent Yelp, while their colleague Bradley Gerla represents the building. The CBRE brokers declined to comment, and multiple calls to Yelp were not returned. Rents for the two floors are in the $80s per square foot, according to a source familiar with the property. The building is anchored by Credit Suisse, which recently downsized to 1.2 million square feet to make room for Sony. The Japanese electronics manufacturer is about to take about 525,000 square feet on the upper floors of the 2.2 million-square-foot building, which is also home to the world-renowned restaurant Eleven Madison Park.
Sapir and CIM were shopping the tower around for $1.5 billion in 2012, but decided to pull it off the market early last year.
Yelp, which is headquartered in San Francisco and has a market cap of more than $4 billion, also occupies about 70,000 square feet at Clarion Partners’ 100-104 Fifth Avenue in Union Square. It started off with just shy of 10,000 square feet at that location three years ago, but has since expanded several times.