WeWork continues to claim space for its mid-sized tenant segment, signing on for 95,650 square feet across three Manhattan locations.
The biggest lease transaction in the batch is at CIM Group’s 67 Irving Place, where the co-working firm is taking a 51,050-square-foot space across eleven floors. WeWork expects to open the location next February. The firm also signed a 28,600-square-foot lease at APF Properties’ 1156 Sixth Avenue and a 16,000-square-foot lease at 225 West 39th Street. Both locations are expected to open in the first half of next year. WeWork’s Arash Gohari represented his firm in the lease negotiations.
Granit Gjonbalaj, WeWork’s chief real estate development officer said that since launching HQ by WeWork in August, the company has seen “incredible demand” for the product,” as reflected by each of our existing locations opening at full occupancy.”
The firm recently signed two HQ by WeWork leases totaling 45,500 square feet at 50 West 28th Street and 599 Broadway. The firm plans to have a mid-sized tenant portfolio of 1 million square feet by next summer.
The firm is now valued at $45 billion after an additional $3 billion investment from Japanese firm SoftBank. The valuation propelled the company past home-sharing service Airbnb, making it the world’s second most valuable startup. The top spot is held by Uber, which has a $60 billion valuation. The new investment came just a month after reports came out that SoftBank was considering spending $20 billion to acquire a majority stake in WeWork. It’s unclear if the latest SoftBank injection is part of that larger sum.