Publishing house Conde Nast has repaid the back-rent it owned on its 1.2 million square feet of offices at One World Trade Center.
In a statement, Conde Nast parent, Advance Publications, said: “One World Trade Center is one of the finest addresses in New York. We are pleased to have resolved our differences with the landlords and to continue to call One World Trade Center our home.”
The company is now working with a brokerage team from JLL and 1 WTC manager, The Durst Organization, to sublease the space Conde won’t be using when it returns workers to the office come September 7.
“We are collaborating with JLL and Durst to find additional first-class tenants to lease the space we no longer need, and we are pleased with the level of activity we are seeing,” said the spokeswoman.
Conde originally tapped JLL to sublease around 350,000 s/f of unoccupied space in the skyscraper four years after it moved there in 2014.
But the pandemic forced the magazine publisher to lay off nearly 100 US employees and furlough 100 more and its planned return to work will be a hybrid remote and in-office strategy as it battles falling print revenue on its titles, including Vogue and Vanity Fair.
Nevertheless, the Port Authority insisted it had “strong contractual rights” to enforce full payment of the $10 million back rent Advance owed since it had refused to pay in January 2021.
While the Port Authority is yet to make an official comment on the resolution, Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz said, “We are pleased with the outcome. We look forward to collaborating with JLL on the sublease of Advance’s available space.”
A JLL team headed by regional president Peter Riguardi continues to lead marketing efforts for the sublease space where asking rents will be in the $60s psf.
In 2019 JLL subleased 94,179 s/f to Ennead Architects and Ambac Financial Group. According to the New York Post, social site Reddit is taking 40,000 s/f of Condé’s One World Trade space, relocating from several locations around New York.
Conde Nast relocated to 1 WTC from the Durst Organization’s 4 Times Square in 2014 after PANYNJ formed a partnership with Durst that gave the firm a minority stake in the landmark skyscraper and paid the rent on the Times Square space until Durst was able to find a new tenant to fill it.
It is estimated the Port Authority handed over around $200 million in rent payments to Durst before the dust settled.
Founded in 1922 by Sam Newhouse, Advance Publications is a holding company that has grown to be among the world’s biggest corporations.
Among its many investor positions, the company is a major shareholder in the Reddit platform and Compass real estate brokerage.
