Wells Fargo to buy NYC Neiman Marcus space at Hudson Yards for $550M: report
Wells Fargo is paying more than half a billion dollars to occupy the space at Hudson Yards that was once leased by high-end department store Neiman Marcus, according to a report.
The bank is planning to convert the 400,000 square feet of space at 20 Hudson Yards into offices, according to Bloomberg News, which cited “people with knowledge of the deal.”
The new offices on the fifth, sixth, and seven floors of the building will expand Wells Fargo’s presence at Hudson Yards even further.
In 2015, Wells Fargo bought 500,000 square feet of office space at nearby 30 Hudson Yards, where the company keeps its securities, investment banking, and capital markets divisions.
Wells Fargo will pay $550 million to Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group, the two firms that own the 11-story building at 20 Hudson Yards, according to Bloomberg News.
Wells Fargo and Related both declined to comment.
The Post has reached out to Neiman Marcus and Oxford Properties Group.
The Wells Fargo expansion at Hudson Yards would buck the slowdown in New York City’s commercial real estate market that has been hamstrung by high interest rates and economic uncertainty.
In the first quarter of this year, office space transactions totaled $5.3 billion, which is a 16% decline from the previous quarter and a 52% drop from the same period a year ago, according to a recent survey by Ariel Property Advisors.
In the first half of 2023, commercial real estate investment sales in Manhattan totaled $12.8 billion, a 43% drop compared to the same period last year, according to Ariel Property Advisors.
The end of the pandemic has brought little relief to Manhattan’s depressed market for workspace, where empty floors remain the norm and by one calculation the values of 45% of the city’s office buildings are below their last sale price.
The amount of space leased in the second quarter was down almost 50% from a year ago and was a quarter less than the five-year pre-pandemic average, according to brokerage data provided to Reuters.
Even so, rental prices have held up and jumped for high-end space.
But a slump in office building sales paints a more dire picture as capital remains reluctant to invest in a market radically changed by remote work.
In 2020, Neiman Marcus, the Texas-based retailer which emerged from bankruptcy by refinancing $1.1 billion in debt, vacated its Hudson Yards store — the company’s first in Manhattan — as well as locations in Florida and Washington State.
The Hudson Yards location was initially slated to open in 2018, but was delayed by a year as the company struggled to shore up its balance sheet.
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