Grovo has signed a 10-year lease for 70,000 square feet at 50 W. 23rd St., where Dropbox and SoundCloud already have offices by Daniel Geiger
A midtown south building on West 23rd Street is quickly becoming a haven for tech companies.
Grovo, which provides clients with online training for employees, has signed a 10-year lease for 70,000 square feet at 50 W. 23rd St., a building owned by Two Trees Management. The company will be taking the entire fifth, sixth and 12th floors at the 13-story, 340,000-square-foot property. Asking rents at the building are above $70 per square foot. The firm will be moving out of 3 Park Ave., where it has 29,000 square feet.
“We’re incredibly excited to have identified a new location for Grovo that will accommodate our current and future growth,” said Jeff Fernandez, Grovo co-founder and CEO, “Our new home will provide open, communal areas for even more collaboration to accelerate our mission to deliver workplace learning programs people love.”
Two Trees is best known for its projects in Dumbo, helping to establish that Brooklyn neighborhood as a popular location for both residential and office tenants. Recently, the company has focused on 50 W. 23rd St., a property it purchased in 2010.
“Building off of our success in Dumbo, where we learned that tech tenants need adaptable, open office space, 50 W. 23rd St. has attracted top tenants across the industry,” said Jed Walentas, a principal of Two Trees Management. “This building remains an ideal location for firms looking for centrally located, adaptable spaces with first-class amenities.”
Walentas said Two Trees has invested about $25 million into renovating the building over the past three years. The improvements include upgrading the lobby, installing more sophisticated heating and ventilation systems and the addition of a 11,000-square-foot roof deck.
With the Grovo lease, Two Trees said, the building is now about 90% occupied. The deal follows two other recently signed leases with tech firms:Dropbox, a cloud computing and storage company, took 31,270 square feet at the building in December, and SoundCloud, the online music platform, took 43,000 square feet there in the summer of 2015.
Dan Conlon and Elizabeth Bueno, in-house leasing executives at Two Trees, represented the landlord in the deal. Eric Ferriello and Robert Tunis, brokers with Colliers International, represented Grovo. Ferriello was also the broker who represented SoundCloud in its lease.