The doctor will see you now … at 568 Broadway.
The digital health startup ZocDoc renewed its 85,000-square-foot lease for 10 years at the Prince Building in Soho.
The $1.8 billion company started out leasing at 568 Broadway several years ago with a 6,000-square-foot sublease from the Scholastic Corporation and expanded to its current footprint. The space covers parts of the second and seventh floors as well as the entire eighth and ninth floors.
But as it grew, ZocDoc considered relocating to a bigger office, and had for some time been out in the market looking for at least 100,000 square feet.
“I like to say we run a good building and people are really well taken care of,” said Bonnie Shapiro, director of leasing at Allied Partners, which owns the 300,000-square-foot building with Aurora Capital Associates and Alex Adjmi. “Also, I’m sure a lack of inventory also had something to do with it.”
Midtown South had the lowest vacancy rate among Manhattan’s three submarkets in October, at 6.9 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. Sources said ZocDoc had been searching for a new headquarters for quite some time – long enough to switch brokers and return to CBRE – but found it tough finding a space that met their requirements.
ZocDoc finally inked the deal at 568 Broadway with an asking rent of around $70 per square foot. Sacha Zarba of CBRE represented the tenant.
The building, located at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street, has been something of a hotspot for tech startups, including Foursquare and 10gen.
Another one of those tenants, the online lifestyle publisher Thrillist, also appears to be finding the Midtown South market unfavorably tight.
The company signed a short-term extension on its 37,000-square-foot space in the building through December 2017. Thrillist had been out in the market with CBRE’s Derrick Ades and Ben Fastenberg for some 60,000 square feet.
“They’re sort of kicking the can a little,” Shapiro said.