61 Ninth Ave.
NEW YORK CITY—Yext is expanding its New York City headquarters, planning to hire 500 employees over the next five years. Its moving into Vornado and Aurora Capital Associates' new 142,000-square-foot building located at 61 Ninth Ave. in the Meatpacking District. The international, digital knowledge management technology company plans to expand its New York State workforce to more than 1,000.
Empire State Development has offered Yext up to $6 million in Excelsior Tax Credits over 10 years. The company will only receive the full incentive if it creates 500 jobs over the next five years and retains those jobs and their existing jobs based in New York City for another five years. Governor Andrew Cuomo's office states the tax breaks will support the creation of jobs in software development engineering, R&D, sales, business development, marketing and administration.
Political leaders and the ESD president, CEO and commissioner, Howard Zemsky say the expansion is a reflection of the successful diversification of the local economy with its growing tech industry.
The governor's office reports across the five borough the city has more than 173,000 tech jobs, up more than 52,000 from 2011.
In January, the property owners at 61 Ninth Ave., Vornado and Aurora received $167.5 million in refinancing. At the time the building was fully leased to Aetna and Starbucks. Aetna had planned to move its headquarters into the space. However, after CVS merged with Aetna, executives decided to keep the insurance company's headquarters in Hartford, CT.
Bloomberg reported that at the end of the year Yext will move from SL Green's One Madison Ave. into the Rafael Viñoly-designed building. A source close to the deal tells GlobeSt.com that the new tenant will be paying $1 million a month in rent.
By the filing of this article, the property owners had not commented on whether Yext was subleasing from Aetna or whether a deal has been made to end Aetna's lease, with the tech company directly leasing from the property owners. This article will be updated if additional information is received.
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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.
