Feel Good Story of the Day, Courtesy of the NY Times

The New York Times has announced that it will lease out eight floors of its Manhattan headquarters to raise revenue—almost half of its total remaining office space:

The New York Times is planning to offer up at least eight floors at its Eighth Avenue headquarters on the sublet market in an effort to generate some rental income.

The Gray Lady, which partnered with Forest City Ratner Companies to develop the Renzo Piano-designed, 1.8 million-square-foot tower at 620 Eighth Avenue in 2007, has been scaling back its presence at the building for some time now. . .

 

But now the sage publication is looking to cash in on its large footprint, putting about half of the 19 floors it occupies up for sublease, Politico reported. The Times’ term runs through 2024, according to CoStar Group.

About 400 employees will relocate to a temporary office while the architecture firm Gensler reorganizes the paper’s office.

This is Spinal Tap territory. Playing the Ian Faith role in explaining that the New York Times‘s appeal isn’t shrinking but is merely becoming “more selective” is publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.:

“The coming redesign will introduce more team rooms and common spaces,” publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and president and CEO Mark Thompson wrote in a company memo Friday. “And, we will do away with big corner offices, like the ones you see on the 16th and 17th floors, including, yes, the publisher and CEO’s offices. We don’t need to preserve those vestiges from a different era, so we won’t.”

Heh. A “different era” meaning when newspapers were profitable, and elite reporters flew first class. Shadow owner Carlos Slim will need to change his name to Carlos Slimmer if this keeps up.

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