General Assembly, the tech-focused continuing education organization, is staying put in the Flatiron District.
The company confirmed that it recently inked a 10-year lease renewal for its 40,000-square-foot space at 915 Broadway. The terms were not disclosed, but sources familiar with the transaction told The Real Deal the parties negotiated a competitive deal, given the current market conditions.
Founded in 2011, General Assembly has grown its presence in the Manhattan neighborhood, starting from a space at 902 Broadway and expanding into ABS Partners’ 915 Broadway. In 2018, the startup was acquired by the Swiss conglomerate Adecco Group for $412.5 million.
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During the pandemic, the school has offered remote courses, but it plans to reopen physical campuses once each region is deemed safe.
“In the post-pandemic future, we believe that a hybrid model combining on-campus collaboration with flexible, live online learning is the way forward,” said General Assembly’s CEO Lisa Lewin.
Along with its office at 915 Broadway, General Assembly has also maintained offices and classrooms at nearby 902 Broadway and 35 East 21st Street, but leases for those spaces — about 30,000 square feet in total — weren’t renewed as the company consolidates its operations into 915 Broadway, sources said.
Even so, the 10-year renewal is a positive sign for Manhattan’s struggling office market, in which tenants have been slow to renew leases as they assess their future office needs.
Many tenants facing renewals opted to sign shorter leases in 2020. As a result, Manhattan’s average office lease term in 2020 was 11 percent shorter than the year before, according to CBRE.
Manhattan’s office availability rate in the first quarter hit record at 16.1 percent, according to Colliers International.