Twitter lists Chelsea office space

Twitter is looking to cut costs in Manhattan, joining scores of tech firms offering New York City office space for sublease.

The social media company listed 200,000 square feet of space up for sublease at its Chelsea offices, brokerage Savills told Bloomberg. The connected buildings at 245 West 17th Street and 249 West 17th Street comprise a property owned by Columbia Property Trust, a subsidiary of PIMCO. 

The addresses surfaced last week as one of seven properties tied up in a recent default by Columbia.

The office landlord last week defaulted on $1.7 billion in loans tied to the properties, including three in New York. The REIT has said it is working with lenders to restructure the debt in the wake of one of the largest office defaults since the onset of the pandemic. 

Twitter, which cut its entire public relations department, did not respond to a request for comment from the outlet.

Columbia has had its issues with Twitter and Musk’s alleged non-payment of rent. Two months ago, an affiliate of Columbia sued the social media company for allegedly not paying rent for its San Francisco office at 650 California Street, claiming Twitter owed more than $136,000 in back rent.

Rent disputes have become a recurring problem for the social media platform. A landlord in Boston sued the company last week, claiming the company owed $632,000 in rent. Other landlords for Twitter in San Francisco have sued the company, as has the Crown Estate, which manages property for King Charles III of the United Kingdom.

Musk purchased the company for $44 billion in October and has been generating headlines since with a spree of controversial cost-cutting measures.

Twitter’s opting to sublease places it in line with a larger retreat from the Manhattan office market by big tech firms, which have been laying off employees in large amounts in recent months. Amazon and Meta are among the companies to roll back office plans in the borough in the past year.

— Holden Walter-Warner