NEW YORK CITY—WeWork is getting some more competition. The flexible office and meeting space provider Convene has signed a 10-year, 93,096 square-foot lease at One Liberty Plaza. This marks its 15th location in New York and fourth with Brookfield Properties.
Convene will operate a public cafe and coffee shop on One Liberty's 4,798 square-foot ground floor level. The building's 12,339 square-foot mezzanine and 28,708 square-foot second floor will be used for full-service meeting and event spaces. The third floor consisting of 44,751 square feet will offer flexible offices. The opening of the Convene areas is scheduled for Q1 2019.
Convene will also provide on-site hospitality and culinary services for meetings and events, and food and beverages for building tenants.
Co-founder and CEO of Convene Ryan Simonetti says, “the space allows us to incorporate all of the elements that are central to Convene's success: purpose-built meeting and event spaces overlooking green space at Zucotti Park, modern and elegant flexible office space, hotel-style meeting and hospitality services, all enabled by user-friendly technology.” Convene recently acquired Beco, a mobile analytics tool that provides landlords with building and tenant data.
“One Liberty Plaza has seen robust leasing activity, recently adding Aon, Business Insider and New Avon to its notable tenant roster,” says Mikael Nahmias, SVP, Office Leasing at Brookfield Properties.
Brookfield is an investor in Convene. In 2017, Convene's Series C funding which raised $68 million was co-led by Brookfield with ArrowMark Partners and Conversion Venture Capital. Investors included The Durst Organization and Elysium Management.
At the closing of the funding, Brookfield had announced the opening of three Convene-operated spaces comprising 84,600 square feet across three of its buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. It also planned to expand Convene's services to all seven of its Los Angeles Class A buildings.
Constructed in 1973, One Liberty Plaza is a 54-story, 2,346,000-square-foot office tower, according to Real Capital Analytics. Blackstone purchased a 49% stake in the building from Brookfield in December 2017.
As part of Convene's long-term strategy, Simonetti has plans to expand its businesses in Manhattan by 46% over the next year, as reported in The Wall Street Journal.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Betsy Kim
Betsy Kim was the bureau chief, East Coast, and New York City reporter for Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. As a lawyer and journalist, Betsy has worked as the director of editorial and content for LexisNexis Lawyers.com, a TV/multi-media journalist for NBC and CBS affiliated TV stations in the Midwest, and an associate producer at Court TV.
