Tishman Speyer Lands 320 KSF Anchor for NYC Office Redevelopment

Office interior at Morgan North. Rendering courtesy of Tishman Speyer

Tishman Speyer has found an anchor tenant for its 630,000-square-foot office redevelopment of the Morgan North Postal Facility at 341 Ninth Ave. in Manhattan, one of the largest mail-processing centers in the country. The company signed Dentsu Aegis Network, a multi-agency global advertising and public relations firm, to a 320,000-square-foot lease at the project.

Originally developed in 1933, Morgan North encompasses 2.2 million square feet and spans an entire city block in West Chelsea on Manhattan’s evolving west side. The deal with Dentsu Aegis comes just one month after Tishman Speyer inked a 99-year lease agreement with the U.S. Postal Service to transform the top six floors of the 10-story structure into creative office space and construct 5,100 square feet of retail accommodations at street level.

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Dentsu Aegis will set up shop on half of the Art Deco building’s expansive 200,000-square-foot sixth floor, in addition to floors seven through 10 in their entirety. The 15-year lease agreement with Tishman Speyer also gives the firm exclusive use of the terrace on the eighth floor and a rooftop amenity space, as well as shared access to a seventh-floor roof deck which, at 2.5 acres, will be the largest private roof deck in Manhattan. Morgan North will provide Dentsu Aegis with the amenities it desires for attracting and retaining top talent and will allow the firm to unite its employees from three separate Manhattan properties at a single address.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Richard Bernstein, Adam Ardise and Jared Thal spearheaded Dentsu Aegis’ search for the right space and represented the firm in the lease transaction with Tishman Speyer, which relied on internal representation. Tishman Speyer expects to commence redevelopment of Morgan North in late 2020, with an eye toward reaching substantial completion in 2022. Dentsu Aegis plans to begin relocating to its new home in 2023. USPS will stay put and continue its operations on the bottom four floors of the massive building.

Reimagining Old New York

Tishman Speyer is no stranger to redeveloping historic properties; its work can be seen across the Big Apple. The global real estate developer will soon debut The Wheeler, a 620,000-square-foot creative office campus that will sit atop the 1930s-era Macy’s building in downtown Brooklyn.

The company also instigated a transformative project at 200 Park Ave., also known as the MetLife Building, involving the re-envisioning of the 50,000-square-foot lobby of the 3.1 million-square-foot office tower.

Tishman Speyer has also spearheaded the redevelopment and repositioning of the 9.3 million-square-foot Rockefeller Center mixed-use complex since July 1996.