IN a pair of relocations that suggest interesting reverse parallels, the world’s oldest English-language publisher is moving to one of the city’s highest-tech buildings, while one of the world’s cutting-edge arts institutions has found a new home with the city’s oldest landlord.
The moves by Cambridge University Press and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, totaling more than 100,000 square feet, signify the growing appeal to creative institutions of the once industrial area below Canal Street on the far West Side.
Cambridge, founded in 1534, is moving to the Rudin family’s landmarked 32 Sixth Ave. in TriBeCa, one block below Canal.
It’s taken 62,000 square feet on the whole 18th floor and part of the 17th, doubling the space it has had at 40 W. 20th St. Terms were not available, but the asking rent was $35 a foot.
Cushman & Wakefield’s John Picco, who repped Cambridge along with Philip Amarante, said the publisher needed more room, but none was available in its price range in its old neighborhood, where “residential conversion was eating up all the older office space.”
After looking in Midtown and Midtown South, “we zeroed in” on 32 Sixth because “it’s an interesting building with great space and great views. And the transit there is quite good, with a subway station right in the building.”
The tower is home to communications and media firms including RAI Corp., AT&T, and ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
Rudin Management president Bill Rudin said Cambridge’s move reflects “a continuing trend of downtown diversification.” As for a centuries-old publisher in a super-wired address, he said, “Old and new merging together, that’s what this building is about.”
Meanwhile, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is expanding and moving its downtown offices from 575 Broadway to 39,426 square feet at Trinity Real Estate’s 345 Hudson St., in the Hudson Square district.
The foundation runs the Guggenheim Museum uptown as well as the Guggenheim museum branches and exhibition spaces in Bilbao, Venice and elsewhere.
The lease at 345 Hudson was announced by Trinity-St. Paul’s rector, Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, and Trinity Real Estate President Carl Weisbrod.
CB Richard Ellis’s Lisa Cear and Joseph Mangiacotti repped the Guggenheim; Trinity’s Jason Pizer, Tom Lynch and David Manzano repped the landlord in-house.
Cear said the Guggenheim wanted “high-end space to consolidate on one floor for a more collaborative atmosphere, but also wanted to stay in an exciting, trendy neighborhood.”
Trinity’s Hudson Square buildings also house such glamorous tenants as the Weinstein Company, L’Oreal, ad agency Kirschenbaum-Bond and David Yurman Jewelry.
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Aby Rosen must rue the construction delays on his new apartment that forced him to overstay his lease at 12 E. 68th St., a townhouse owned by Sharon Goldman.
Rosen heads up RFR Holdings, owner of trophy skyscrapers including the Seagram Building and Lever House and developer of a planned new hotel/apartment tower designed by Sir Norman Foster.
Last summer, Rosen suffered the fate of many an ordinary tenant when he was socked with $149,058 in back-rent payments he was found to owe Goldman – a legal ordeal that landed him in court the day before his wedding to Samantha Boardman.
Now he’s out an additional $204,973.24 in legal fees.
But late last week, a civil court judge ruled for Goldman and tacked on interest of $3,689.52 to boot.
Rosen had no comment.