Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox and News Corp. companies have both signed lease renewals and expansions totaling more than 1.2 million s/f at 1211 Sixth Avenue in Midtown.
NewsCorp. will extend its current lease on 440,000 s/f through 2025, while Fox’s deal totals 784,000 s/f and a five-year extension of a lease that would have expired in 2020, as well as 128,000 more s/f of space on three high floors. The Fox lease is a restructuring and expansion through 2025.
Both companies were represented by CBRE brokers Mary Ann Tighe, Tim Dempsey, Ken Rapp, Chris Mansfield, and Ariel Ball.
The expansion is expected to take place this year, and will accommodate employees of Fox who currently work next door at 1185 Sixth Avenue.
According to the New York Post, Fox News Channel will be investing a large sum of money into creating a state-of-the-art newsroom. The TV news network recently launched a $30 million sidewalk-fronting studio. A spokesman for Fox told Real Estate Weekly in an email, “I canʼt confirm, but you woudn’t be wrong if you cited the NY Post story.ˮ
NewsCorp. and 21st Century Fox have been at 1211 Sixth Avenue, the 44-story, two million s/f tower between West 47th and 48th Streets, since 1992 when they were still one company.
The tower is owned by Ivanhoé Cambridge and partner Callahan Capital Properties, neither of whom responded to requests for comment. Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlords, according to the Post. Other longtime tenants in the building include Dow Jones, also owned by News Corp., which moved there in 2009.
In 2015, Fox and NewsCorp. considered a move downtown to 2 World Trade Center, and signed a non-binding letter of intent to lease 1.3 million s/f of office and studio space at the Silverstein Properties tower. The deal never came to fruition.
