Meta, Amazon bail on NYC office expansions

Facebook parent was eyeing 300k sf addition at 770 Broadway

From left: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and 770 Broadway (Getty, Loominosity Z, CC BY-SA 2.0 - via Wikimedia Commons)
From left: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and 770 Broadway (Getty, Loominosity Z, CC BY-SA 2.0 - via Wikimedia Commons)

Two tech titans appear to be retreating from office expansions in the Big Apple.

Both Meta and Amazon are backing away from their plans to expand in New York City, Bloomberg reported. Neither has signaled any intent to eliminate space they already have in the city, but are backing off potential deals to add space.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was reportedly planning on taking 300,000 square feet of additional space at Vornado Realty Trust’s 770 Broadway, where the company already has a large swath of space. The lease would have brought the company footprint to more than 800,000 square feet at the office building.

The space Meta was interested in was formerly leased by Verizon. Four years ago, Meta made its most recent expansion at the building, signing a lease for 78,000 square feet to hit 513,000 square feet in the building.

Meta didn’t comment specifically on the 770 Broadway decision to the outlet, but noted the company remains committed to the city. The company in 2020 leased 730,000 square feet at the redeveloping Farley Post Office, which remains in the works.

The company also paused plans to build out further offices at Hudson Yards.

Amazon is also reportedly retreating from an office expansion in the city after the tech giant was in talks for an undetermined amount of space at 5 Manhattan West in Hudson Yards. JPMorgan Chase put more than 100,000 square feet at the building up for sublease last year.

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Both parties declined Bloomberg’s request for comment.

It’s not clear how much of that space Amazon was planning to take. No deal has been signed yet, suggested Jeff Bezos’ company was going to take a smaller amount of square footage, but was still planning on taking something.

Amazon still has plenty of space in Hudson Yards. In 2019, the company signed a 335,000-square-foot lease at 410 Tenth Avenue, owned at the time by SL Green.

One year later, 601W Companies purchased the building for $952.5 million.

— Holden Walter-Warner