Time Inc. Eyeing Move to Downtown Manhattan

Current corporate parent Time Warner will spin off Time Inc. and move to a new Manhattan building.

Time Inc., the magazine giant that Time Warner is planning to spin off later this year, is looking at leaving its headquarters at the Time & Life Building in midtown Manhattan to take advantage of lower rents in lower Manhattan, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

The largest U.S. magazine publisher, whose brands include Time, Sports Illustrated, People and Entertainment Weekly, has talked to real estate companies managing locations in the new World Trade Center complex and other downtown locations, as new CEO Joseph Ripp is looking to reduce costs, it said.

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Time Inc. has been in its Avenue of the Americas headquarters near Rockefeller Center since the 1950s. Its lease expires in 2017. Time Warner itself recently unveiled a deal to move from its current headquarters in the Time Warner Center at Manhattan's Columbus Circle to a new Hudson Yards development slightly south of its current location.

Top office space in the current neighborhood of the Time Inc. headquarters costs an average of $82.35 per square foot late in 2013, compared with $53.79 for downtown areas, Bloomberg News said, citing data from real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield.

"We are currently exploring a number of real estate options," a Time Inc. spokeswoman confirmed.

Time Warner’s spinoff of Time Inc. will allow the entertainment conglomerate, led by CEO Jeff Bewkes, to focus on its cable networks and film businesses as the publishing arm has struggled amid changing consumer habits and lower advertising revenue in the digital age.

Conde Nast Publications has also agreed to leave midtown for lower Manhattan.

E-mail: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai

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Time Warner Sells Manhattan Headquarters for $1.3 Billion, Unveils Relocation Plans

Time Warner has agreed to sell its midtown Manhattan headquarters for $1.3 billion and plans to move its operations in the Big Apple under one roof in a new building on the far West Side of Manhattan, the entertainment conglomerate said Thursday.

The sale agreement with real estate firm Related Companies and partners for the Time Warner Center, on whose construction the entertainment conglomerate spent around $520 million about a decade ago, is the result of TW's exploration of its real estate options for the past two and a half years.

Time Warner, led by chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes, has been looking to save money and consolidate the staff of its various operations. It currently has seven office locations in New York. Most of the leases are believed to be up in 2017.

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TW will lease office space in the Time Warner Center until early 2019, the firm said Thursday.

TW said it has sold the 1.1 million square feet of office space it owns in Time Warner Center to a venture of Related Companies, an entity owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and GIC.

Additionally, TW, Related and Oxford Properties Group said they plan to relocate the company’s corporate headquarters and its New York City-based employees to Hudson Yards, on the West Side of Manhattan. TW has made an initial financial commitment, they said, without providing further details.
Related has been developing a new commercial tower in the Hudson Yards neighborhood, south of Times Square. It is a skyscraper set to be built at the corner of 10th Avenue and 33rd Street.

The far West of Manhattan has offered cheaper real estate prices in an effort to revitalize the area and attract people and companies. Previous chatter suggested that TW could save $100 million or more by moving office space.

Said Bewkes: "The sale of our office space in Time Warner Center to Related Companies and its partners is an important step toward moving our New York City-based employees into a dynamic new complex that will foster even more collaboration, creativity and efficiency across our businesses."

He added: "By consolidating our space to Hudson Yards, New York’s next great neighborhood, we will be able to reallocate substantial savings to our primary business of creating and sharing great storytelling in television, film and journalism with audiences around the world."

Email: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai

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