Moody's, one of the first companies to sign an office lease at the new World Trade Center after 9/11, is leaving the complex for a building across the street.
The ratings agency has signed a 460K SF lease to move its headquarters to 200 Liberty St., a 40-story tower in Brookfield Place, it announced Monday. It plans to move to the Brookfield-owned building in 2027.
“Since our founding more than 115 years ago, our global headquarters has been in Lower Manhattan, and this new office is the next chapter of our downtown presence,” Moody's Corp. CEO Rob Fauber said in a statement.
The lease represents a significant downsizing from the roughly 760K SF Moody's occupies at 7 World Trade Center. It has grown its footprint at the building, as well as the larger WTC complex, since agreeing to move to the tower in 2005.
The lease was an important win at the time for the WTC complex, which Silverstein took over shortly before it was destroyed, then redeveloped it into a handful of trophy office towers that are today almost fully leased.
Moody's departure after 20 years of occupancy is a major feather in the cap of Brookfield, which has owned Brookfield Place since its predecessor developed the complex as the World Financial Center in the 1980s.
Also on Monday, the asset management giant announced it modified and renewed its ground lease for the 9.4M SF complex with the Battery Park City Authority. It now controls the site until 2119 on a $1.9B lease, of which $1.5B will be allocated to affordable housing.
Moody's deal is one of the largest signed in 2025, just days before the year draws to a close. It follows New York University's 1M SF lease at 770 Broadway and Deloitte's 800K SF deal at 70 Hudson Yards among the prominent new leases and relocations.
The lease is part of the financial services firm's global office restructuring, which includes new spaces in London, Sydney, Tokyo, Milan and Washington, D.C.
Cushman & Wakefield's Robert Lowe, John Cefaly, Paige Engledrum, Ed Donnery, Michael Montesi and Nicholas Dysenchuk represented Moody's in the move. Brookfield's Mikael Nahmias, Dan Roberts and Andrew Dunn and JLL’s Paul Glickman, John Wheeler and Christine Colley represented the landlord.
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