American Express officials say that the company will begin a phased relocation of its employees from leased space in Jersey City, Parsippany and Short Hills, N.J., as well as from 400 Atlantic St., in downtown Stamford to its offices in Lower Manhattan beginning next month (April). The timing of the relocation coincides with when the credit card giant's space at 3 World Financial Center will be ready for occupancy once again.

Molly Faust, a spokesperson for American Express, says that the company is following through on its intentions announced last November to vacate its space in Stamford, Short Hills and Parsippany. Late last week, American Express announced that it would also vacate approximately 175,000 sf of space it had leased days after Sept. 11 in Jersey City. A total of 560 American Express employees now working out of Jersey City will relocate back to Lower Manhattan.

The American Express sublease will put another large block of space on the market in the Fairfield-Westchester county area. In 2001 and continuing into this year, both markets have suffered from a major increase in sublease space availabilities as corporations downsize their space requirements. At the end of 2001, approximately 34 percent of the total unoccupied space available in Fairfield County was sublease space, according to commercial brokerage firm Insignia/ESG. A year earlier, approximately 20 percent of the overall available space in the county consisted of sublease space.