Slate Magazine Leaves West Village for Brooklyn

Slate Magazine is leaving the West Village and will be moving to Brooklyn. The magazine has signed a lease on a 21,000-square-foot space at the Forest City Ratner's Metrotech Center in downtown Brooklyn, where they plan to move in April along with Panoply, a podcasting arm of Slate Group.

Currently, Slate is sharing a space with the Washington Post at Brickman Associates' 95 Morton Street in Hudson Square. The two firms were once part of the same company, but when Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, bought the Post in 2013, Slate didn't join the deal, as reported by The Real Deal.

A spokesperson for the Slate told Advertising Age, "We're following our staff - New York's creative class no longer lives in Manhattan."

Only a handful of media companies call Brooklyn a home. Located at 90 North 11^th Street in Williamsburg is the Vice Media, while Time Inc has announced recently that they are moving some of its employees to the Industrial City development at Sunset Park.

Despite the growing number of media offices in Brooklyn, most New York-based media companies are reluctant to leave Manhattan behind and set up office across the river, according to Adage.

But the Slate Group is determined to leave Manhattan. The digital magazine and Panoply are moving to a new office space in Metrotech downtown Brooklyn this coming April. Their spokeswoman said in an e-mail that it is an attempt to follow their staff, as "New York's creative class no longer lives in Manhattan."

The new 21,000-square-foot space at Forest City Ratner's Metrotech Center where Slate and Panoply will move, boasts four podcast studios for Panoply (up from two), a video studio, and enough room for about 128 seats (though only about 100 employees will initially occupy the space).

When Slate moves to Brooklyn in April, they will join other media companies that are already based there, including Vice Media, which has been based in Williamsburg since 2001, and the Awl Network. Recently, Time Inc has transferred 300 employees to Brooklyn, although its headquarters remains in Manhattan.