Condé Nast signs $2B WTC lease

Condé Nast Wednesday made official its 25-year, $2 billion lease at 1 World Trade Center, signing the agreement on the 34th floor of the skyscraper overlooking the redeveloping Ground Zero.

The publisher of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, among other magazines, will be among the largest media companies to put down roots in lower Manhattan, a neighborhood renowned as the home of financial firms. The fact was not lost on Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Condé Nast will "help us in our efforts to diversify the neighborhood's economy," Bloomberg said. "Make no mistake, lower Manhattan will always be the global center of finance -- that's its history and its future as well -- but if the recent national recession underscored anything, it's the importance of having a broad economic base that can withstand the ups and downs of any one industry."

The media giant and 3,000 of its employees will occupy 21 floors and more than 1 million square feet, making it the anchor tenant of the tower, officials said. Upon its scheduled completion in 2013, the building is set to be the tallest in the nation at 1,776 feet.

Sixty-six of its 104 floors had been built as of Wednesday.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director Chris Ward, its chairman David Samson and Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse Wednesday signed the lease amid the rumbling of Ground Zero construction.

"The entire landscape of downtown today changes forever. The bustling streets of downtown will now be home to one of the world's most influential media empires, a trendsetter and a game changer," Ward said. "Condé Nast immediately brings authority and legitimacy to any subject, and now the same can be said for real estate."

Condé Nast, lured in part by tax incentives away from its current headquarters at 4 Times Square, is the second tenant confirmed at 1 World Trade Center. China Center New York, a division of Vantone Industrial Co., signed a lease for 191,000 square feet there last year.

When Condé Nast moved to midtown in the 1990s, "it triggered a renaissance, driving the explosion of high-end retail and commercial development," Ward pointed out.

It could potentially "works its magic again" on lower Manhattan, an area recovering from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, especially in the media realm, Bloomberg said.

Sirius XM Radio Inc. is considering a move to the area, he said. And the New York Daily News and American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, are relocating to 4 New York Plaza in the neighborhood, he said.

Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman Wednesday declined to discuss other potential tenants looking at the 1.8 million square feet still available at 1 World Trade Center. They will make themselves known when they have preliminary leases, he said.