Genius, an online-annotation company currently based out of 10 apartments in a Williamsburg residential building, is picking up and relocating to 43,000 square feet in a building west of the Gowanus Canal.
The new spot on Third Street, which will house 50 employees, measures 90,000 square feet in total and was purchased by Asher Abehsera, Aaron Lemma and David Brecher’s PWR Realty about seven months ago for $20 million.
The company is the latest to pack up and relocate to the burgeoning area. Farmigo, a company that connects shoppers and local farmers, moved 30 employees from Dumbo to Gowanus three months ago. And Holstee, which sells posters, frames and other design products, moved 10 employees from Manhattan about a year ago.
Long associated with its namesake polluted canal, Gowanus is now seeing a flurry of residential development and incoming tech tenants in an area now anchored by a new Whole Foods.
In an effort to marry the neighborhood’s residential and commercial coming-of-age, Genuis will give employees a $500-per-month work rent credit if they live within a 20-minute walk of the Gowanus office. [WSJ] — Julie Strickland