Amazon Taking Another 200K SF Of Manhattan Office Space
Tech giant Amazon is expanding in Midtown Manhattan again as the company calls its employees back to the office five days a week.
Amazon signed a sublease deal for 193K SF at 237 Park Ave., the New York Business Journal reported.
It is unclear when Amazon will move into the 21-story, 1.2M SF office tower, which is owned by a partnership of RXR and Walton Street Capital. The building was reportedly 97% occupied as of September, and its website shows listings for just 34K SF of available space.
The tech company didn’t confirm the tenant it was subleasing from, but Kansas City-based creative agency VML put the same amount of space up for sublease in the building in September 2022, the NYBJ reported. VML’s lease is due to expire in 2027, according to Morningstar Credit.
JPMorgan Chase, which occupies 21% of the building, is due to relocate to its brand-new headquarters at 270 Park Ave. The switch is expected to take place prior to its December 2025 lease expiration, according to Morningstar.
Additionally, Jennison Associates, which occupies approximately 13% of 237 Park's square footage, relocated to 55 E. 52nd St. before its lease expired last month.
The deal is Amazon’s third New York City office lease signed in just the past few months.
The firm took on almost 304K SF at 330 W. 34th St. in October last year via a sublease agreement, Commercial Observer reported at the time. The lease accounts for almost half of the 683K SF Chelsea property owned by Vornado just steps away from Penn Station.
In February, WeWork signed a 112K SF lease in Brookfield Properties' Five Manhattan West that the tech giant will occupy. The 16-story Hudson Yards office building spans roughly 1.7M SF.
“We continuously evaluate our corporate office needs to best serve Amazon’s businesses, employees and customers,” a spokesperson for Amazon told the NYBJ.
Amazon notified its employees during the fall that it would require workers to be in the office full time as of Jan. 2, but it delayed those plans due to lack of space in cities including NYC, Atlanta and Nashville, Business Insider previously reported.
While financial services firms have been the most active tenant group in the city's office market in the past two years, tech firms have started to express interest in NYC’s office space again after a dormant stretch.
“The technology firms are starting to reengage in the marketplace a little bit,” BXP Senior Vice President of Leasing Heather Kahn said at a Bisnow event in October. “We’ve all noticed that the tech market has been missing for the last couple of years.”
