If “work from home” is the future trend, home will mean 1211 Sixth Avenue for Fox Corp. and News Corp for 20 more years to come.
In a major boost to the Midtown office market, Fox and News Corp signed separate leases to extend their headquarters commitments at 1211 Sixth Ave. through 2042. The leases total nearly 1.2 million square feet in the 44-story, 2 million square-foot tower between West 47th and 48th streets.
News Corp, which owns the New York Post, and Fox Corp. are separate companies controlled by Rupert Murdoch. A proposal to re-merge them into a single entity is under consideration by the two companies.
The blockbuster deal with 1211 Sixth owner Ivanhoe Cambridge, a Canadian pension fund, also includes plans to significantly improve the property. Changes overseen by asset manager Hines are to include a renovated main lobby, upgrades to the outdoor plaza, and creation of a new 47th Street lobby. Work is to start in late 2023.
The combined lease was signed in 2022 but kept under wraps until now. It was Manhattan’s largest last year and the largest in Manhattan in three years.
It’s a huge shot in the arm for Sixth Avenue, which has lost fewer tenants to the far West Side and downtown than have Third and Park Avenues. Several other mid-20th century towers in the West 40s and 50s have also undergone significant improvements, such as Rockefeller Group’s former Time + Life Building at 1271 Sixth.
The 1211 Sixth deals represent a stroke of faith in the future of offices, defying forecasts that employees, especially in media jobs, would all work from home.
News Corp is the parent of Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, HarperCollins Publishers and news organizations in the UK and Australia. Fox Corp. owns Fox News and the Fox broadcast network, along with local TV stations and the Tubi streaming service.
CBRE represented the tenants. Cushman & Wakefield and Hines acted for the ownership.