Gawker Media is getting a new home. The online publishing giant that operates Jezebel, Gizmodo and Deadspin is moving to a new office at 114 Fifth Ave to occupy three floors in the 19-storey building.
Nick Denton, owner of Gawker media, wrote in a memo to the employees breaking news of the move.
"I have some big news about the company's expansion and future plans. In particular, we will be moving out of the walk-up Nolita loft space that has been our home since 2008. Earlier today, we signed a lease for three floors of 114 Fifth Avenue," he wrote.
Gawker has reportedly signed a 15-year lease to occupy a total of 59,000 square feet. According to the New York Observer, Gawker will have its own entry at 17th Street and the offices will be on the second and third floors. The two floors will be joined by a common public and performance space.
"By contrast, the working space will be arranged in what we call studios, spaces contained on three sides designed for teams of half a dozen people or so to collaborate on projects without disturbing others," Denton wrote in the memo.
Gawker reportedly plans on subletting a floor temporarily, but will occupy it once it expands further.
The media company had been looking for a new office for quite a while now and even expanded at the Nolita office in January, taking up two additional floors.
"Our long search for a new office is over, and it turns out what we were looking for was right beneath our noses the whole time," Joel Johnson, editorial director of Gawker, wrote in an email to Capital at that time. "It was just rented by other people. And ugly."
Denton told the Business Insider that the lease was worth $75 million.
"It's a long-term commitment funded from our growth over the last three years -- and a mark of our confidence in the prospects for online media, and our own trajectory," Denton added in the memo.
About 114 Fifth Avenue
The building at 114 Fifth Avenue is a 330,000-square-foot commercial tower, owned by L&L Holding Company - which paid $165 million to purchase the building last year.
Asking rents in the building are about $78 for a square foot. It is currently 80 percent occupied and its tenant roster includes Mashable, MasterCard and First Look Media.
Find more photos and information about the building here.
