Aetna finalized a deal to lease the entire office portion of Aurora Capital Associates and Vornado Realty Trust’s 61 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District.
The insurance giant, which has been headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, for 164 years, will be moving into 145,000 square feet in the under-construction building by the end of the year, the New York Times reported.
That’s the entire office portion of the building above the retail component, where Starbucks had earlier signed a lease for a 20,000-square-foot megastore.
Aetna plans to have 250 employees at the location, many of them new jobs.
“New York City is a knowledge economy hub, and a driver of the innovations that will play a significant part in our ongoing transformation,” company CEO Mark Bertolini wrote in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.
Architect Rafael Viñoly designed the nine-story office-and-retail building, which will feature a terrace on each floor.
In order to lure Aetna from Connecticut, New York state offered the company $24 million in performance-based tax credits over the next 10 years. The company will retain about 5,000 employees in its home state, which is struggling with a projected $5.1 billion budge deficit over the next two years. [NYT and WSJ] – Rich Bockmann
(To view more office leasing transactions at Vornado Realty Trust owned properties, click here)