(Bloomberg) — A new lease at the bottom of Manhattan’s One World Trade Center boosted occupancy in the skyscraper to 95%.
An existing tenant, German data processing firm Celonis, expanded its space in the tower, taking up all 40,763 square feet (3,787 sq m) on the 70th floor, according to a statement Monday by landlords Durst Organization and the Port Authority of New York and New York. According to the jersey.
Occupancy on the property, which has 3.1 million sq ft of space, stood at 93% in February 2020 and dipped to nearly 90% during the pandemic as tenants with remote employers terminated their leases.
“It’s been a long time for us — now 11 years — to reach this milestone,” said Eric Engelhardt, head of Durst’s lease on the 104-story skyscraper. “We’ve done so much here that a lot of people thought we couldn’t.”
One World Trade, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 1,776 feet (541 m), was opened in 2014 at the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The largest tenant, Condé Nast, agreed to take about one million square feet in 2011.
Condé Nast’s parent, Advance Magazine Publishers Inc., put rents on hold during the pandemic as it tried to renegotiate or exit the lease. According to Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz, rentals are now up to date and some of the space has been sub-lease.
Advance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The financial district was hit hard by Covid-19, as skyscrapers fell vacant and major tenants from JPMorgan Chase & Co to S&P Global abandoned large blocks of offices. Although leasing has increased in the area since then, new access to the market continues to grow, increasing the total vacancies.
Celonis, which is headquartered in Munich and New York, had a $1 billion funding round last year, bringing its total valuation to more than $11 billion.
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