Breaking News: Time Warner Sells 1.1 MSF Office Space to Related Cos.

By Anna Spiewak, News Editor

Time Warner Center

It’s official: Time Warner Inc. has sold office space within the Time Warner Center. It’s leasing it back, and later moving to Hudson Yards.

The company giant  has sold the 1.1 million square feet of office space it owns in Time Warner Center for $1.3 billion to a venture of Related Cos., owned by Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and GIC Pte, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, both of which agreed to finance more than 80 percent of the acquisition, according to news sources.

Time Warner will lease back the space from Related until early 2019.

Both Time Warner, Related and Oxford Properties Group have stated that Time Warner plans to relocate the company’s corporate headquarters and its local employees to Hudson Yards on the west side of Manhattan and has made an initial financial commitment.

According to Arthur Mirante, president of Tri-State Region for Avison Young, this news was long awaited and it’s good news for the Hudson Yards district, because it’s just another step in the momentum that was created by Hudson Yards.

Arthur Mirante, of AY

“There’s a lot happening and it’s all pointing to the taking off of this neighborhood,” Mirante told CPE. “It bodes for a continuing confidence in Manhattan, a tightening market in the short term and the developments that have not yet begun are looking more real than ever before.”

Time Warner Chairman & CEO Jeff Bewkes said the company began this process two years ago to evaluate its commercial real estate footprint in the New York Metropolitan area, where Time currently owns and leases space within seven properties.

“The sale of our office space in Time Warner Center to Related Cos. 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,” Bewkes said in the news release. “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.”

Eastdil Secured represented Time Warner on the sale of its office space at Time Warner Center. Studley is representing Time Warner, and CBRE is representing Related and Oxford with respect to Time Warner’s planned acquisition of space in Hudson Yards for its new corporate headquarters.

“Time Warner has been a great steward for what will inevitably be some of the most sought after commercial office space in the city,” added Related Cos. Chairman Stephen Ross.

Time Warner Center,  a major tourist attraction and shopping destination, next door to Central Park was opened in 2004 and brings in more than 16 million visitors a year.