Lois Weiss for the New York Post:
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is facing off with Tim Cook’s Apple over posh Manhattan office digs slated to open next year inside a grandiose former post office, The Post has learned.
As The Post exclusively reported in September, Zuckerberg’s social media company has been in talks to take over all 740,000 square feet of office space being built in the former James A. Farley Post Office — a stately all-white structure located across from Madison Square Garden.
Only Apple, which toured the Farley renovation earlier this year, has suddenly decided it, too, wants all four floors of Farley’s office space being developed by Vornado Realty Trust — including a new floor being built on the roof that will be surrounded by gardens, sources said.
Applications by the dueling tech giants has posed a dilemma for Vornado’s street-savvy chairman, Steve Roth, who is also Facebook’s landlord at 770 Broadway, where the tech giant leases 758,000 square feet… Despite Apple’s girth, industry sources say Roth appears to be leaning toward Facebook, who he has worked with at the 770 Broadway location since 2013.
Apple also has feelers out at another Manhattan post office redevelopment project, known as Morgan North, in case Farley falls through, sources said.
MacDailyNews Take: We like how the source says “Apple has better credit,” as if Facebook couldn’t buy the whole building and block if they wanted to. Short of having The Bobs mediate, it sounds like it would be a better business decision for Roth to not aggravate a current client and give it to Facebook if the lease negotiations turn out close to equal.
With that much space in play, I’d think it would be prudent to have two separate tenants rather just one.
You nailed it Spark. Any landlord with a brain would spread his risk over two different tenants in different businesses even if it meant less money (which I do not think is the case here).
Of those two tenants which one will till be around and in 20 years? Hint It won’t be “MySpace 2.0”.