Airport Security Tech Firm Clear Moving HQ To 120K SF At Vornado And Related’s 85 10th Ave.
Clear Secure, which develops technology for airport security and check-in, is ready for departure to Manhattan's West Side, sped through the process with nearly a year and a half of free rent as a deal sweetener.
The company is moving its headquarters to 120K SF at 85 10th Ave., owned by a joint venture of Related Cos. and Vornado, it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of the deal, Clear secured a 16-month rent abatement period — and a further rent abatement will run through February 2027, which is “intended to cover the Company’s obligations under a prior lease agreement.”
Clear is tripling its current footprint in Midtown, where it leases 48K SF, according to Newmark, whose vice chairman, Jared Horowitz, and head of New York consulting, Jason Perla, represented the tenant in the lease. The tech firm is headquartered at Park Avenue Tower at 65 East 55th St., where it moved in 2018.
The lease at 85 10th is for 15 years, with the option to renew for one five-year or 10-year period, per the filing. Clear Secure will pay $12.1M a year in rent for the first five years of the deal,
The annual payments go up to $13.2M for years five through 10 of the lease. In the last five years of the lease, Clear agreed to pay $14.3M each year.
A representative from Vornado declined to comment and representatives from Related did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Related's Stephen Winter and Vornado's Edward Riguardi and Anthony Cugini acted as in-house leasing agents on the deal.
“CLEAR reaffirmed their commitment to the NYC office market, and their choice to relocate to 85 Tenth Avenue further reinforces the recent trend where tenants in a post-pandemic market are drawn to top-quality assets with great ownership that offers a neighborhood of amenities," Horowitz said in a press release. "In addition, the large floor plates with picturesque views provide them a blank canvass to design their workplace of the future."
The building, an 11-story, 635K SF, 108-year-old former Nabisco cookie factory, is also home to Google; the tech giant signed a lease for 180K SF there in 2014 and has since expanded in the building to just shy of 300K SF, per Commercial Observer.
Google has doubled down on the West Side in recent years, and it has agreed to pay $2.1B for the campus headquarters Oxford Properties is building on its behalf out of the former St. John's Terminal rail facility. Manhattan office leasing picked up in October, though its significant excess supply means availability remains at 17%.
Some 2.7M SF of office space was leased during the month of October, a nearly 11% increase from September and a 52% jump from October 2020, according to Colliers' monthly leasing snapshot. That leasing total translates to the best month of activity since January 2020.
Clear's new lease on 10th Avenue starts in October 2022, contingent on Vornado and Related's renovations being completed, but it won't start paying rent until 2024.
