NEW YORK CITY-The question: "what is 51 Astor Place?" The answer: "The location in the city where IBM moving a portion of its Armonk, NY-based company."
The technology pioneer will give its Watson supercomputer—best known for its appearance on the television game show “Jeopardy!,” in which it beat out Ken Jennings, the most long-running champion in the show's history—its own offices for several hundred employees in the new, cutting-edge building, according to the Journal News.
Developed by Edward J. Minskoff Equities, 51 Astor is in the East Village and is considered to be at the cutting edge of buiding development. The 430,000-square-foot glass tower, developed on spec, has attracted the interest of several potential technology tenants, including Twitter and Cisco, though the firms have not yet inked agreements. The tower did lock in 1stdibs, an online auctioneer, for approximately 42,000 square feet.
The building is represented in lease negotiations by Jones Lang LaSalle's Peter Riguardi, president, Paul Glickman and Mitchell Konsker, vice chairmen, as well as Cynthia Wasserberger, managing director. JLL did not respond to a request for comment by presstime.
Since Watson's moment in the spotlight, IBM has been developing the supercomputer for more practical purposes and changed it to a cloud-based service, according to the Journal News. Its massive data-crunching capabilities are used in industries ranging from health care to banking. The move is part of a $1 billion investment in Watson to develop and commercialize the technology.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
