Although financial firms filled the original twin towers, One and Four World Trade Center are attracting a new breed of tenants: technology, media and advertising companies.
These companies often need less office space, however, leaving relatively more space vacant in the massive towers. At the current rate of leasing, the towers won’t reach 95 percent occupancy until 2019.
Most new tenants, including One World Trade’s anchor, Condé Nast, have come from the creative sector. Gaming company High 5 has also signed a lease there, indicating that the area is becoming “much hipper,” according to Bloomberg.
And at Silverstein Properties Four World Trade Center, MediaMath inked a lease for 106,000 square feet, making it one of the largest tenants in the building.
Currently, roughly 3.3 million square feet — including the 1.2 million square feet that is occupied by Condé Nast — has been leased out at the pair of buildings. While financial firms made up 80 percent of the office space in the twin towers, they make up 1.3 percent of current tenants, according to Bloomberg. TAMI tenants — which took about 3 percent at the old World Trade Center — have taken up roughly 33 percent of the tower’s space so far. Government tenants occupy roughly 40 percent.
“People were expecting financial companies to be a substantial portion of the leased space,” Christopher Jones, vice president of research at New York’s Regional Plan Association told the website. “I don’t think many people would have thought that it would be virtually nothing.”
One World Trade Center opened in November. Roughly 2 million square feet are still vacant at both One and Four World Trade Center, the first two towers to reopen at Ground Zero after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. [Bloomberg News] — Claire Moses