Digital news website Mashable is on the prowl for a new headquarters of up to 60,000 square feet, The Real Deal has learned. The burgeoning media organization has been rapidly scaling up its workforce and will leave SL Green Realty’s 304 Park Avenue South next year.
CBRE’s Sacha Zarba confirmed that Mashable was shopping for space, but declined to provide further details except to say that the company’s new headquarters would be between 40,000 and 60,000 square feet. Mashable and its 80-plus full-time employees have outgrown its current 17,444-square-foot space at 304 Park Avenue South On East 23rd Street, an insider familiar with the search process told The Real Deal.
Mashable would likely look to remain in the Gramercy Park neighborhood, or move to the nearby Flatiron District, the source added.
Representatives for Mashable and SL Green couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, but data from CompStak indicates that Mashable’s sublease with IMG Models at 304 Park Avenue South — for which it currently pays rents in the mid-$30s per square foot — expires in September 2014.
Founded by Scotland native Pete Cashmore in 2005 as a social media blog, Mashable has rapidly grown into one of the world’s most high-profile digital media websites, and has expanded its coverage in recent years to business, technology and national affairs. It recently hired former New York Times assistant managing editor Jim Roberts to oversee its editorial coverage.
TAMI (technology, advertising, media, and information) tenants are usurping financial and legal companies as the power players in the Manhattan office market, as The Real Deal has reported. Indeed, TAMI tenants accounted for over a quarter of the top ten leasing deals in the first and second quarters of 2013.
Recent high-profile TAMI leases include a deal struck by Yahoo, which in May took four floors at the former New York Times building at 229 West 43rd Street and announced its intent to increase its New York presence by 60 percent; and Facebook, which in June took 100,000 square feet at Vornado Realty Trust’s 770 Broadway. Qatari media giant Al Jazeera is also mulling a 200,000-square-foot space at Boston Properties at 250 West 55th Street.