Convene Leases 93,000 Square-Foot Space at One Liberty Plaza
The Brookfield Properties’ Lower Manhattan location will be the workplace hospitality company’s largest space in the US.
NEW YORK CITY—WeWork is getting some more competition. The flexible office and meeting space provider Convene has signed a 10-year, 93,096 square-foot lease at One Liberty Plaza. This marks its 15th location in New York and fourth with Brookfield Properties.
Convene will operate a public cafe and coffee shop on One Liberty’s 4,798 square-foot ground floor level. The building’s 12,339 square-foot mezzanine and 28,708 square-foot second floor will be used for full-service meeting and event spaces. The third floor consisting of 44,751 square feet will offer flexible offices. The opening of the Convene areas is scheduled for Q1 2019.
Convene will also provide on-site hospitality and culinary services for meetings and events, and food and beverages for building tenants.
Co-founder and CEO of Convene Ryan Simonetti says, “the space allows us to incorporate all of the elements that are central to Convene’s success: purpose-built meeting and event spaces overlooking green space at Zucotti Park, modern and elegant flexible office space, hotel-style meeting and hospitality services, all enabled by user-friendly technology.” Convene recently acquired Beco, a mobile analytics tool that provides landlords with building and tenant data.
“One Liberty Plaza has seen robust leasing activity, recently adding Aon, Business Insider and New Avon to its notable tenant roster,” says Mikael Nahmias, SVP, Office Leasing at Brookfield Properties.
Brookfield is an investor in Convene. In 2017, Convene’s Series C funding which raised $68 million was co-led by Brookfield with ArrowMark Partners and Conversion Venture Capital. Investors included The Durst Organization and Elysium Management.
At the closing of the funding, Brookfield had announced the opening of three Convene-operated spaces comprising 84,600 square feet across three of its buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. It also planned to expand Convene’s services to all seven of its Los Angeles Class A buildings.
Constructed in 1973, One Liberty Plaza is a 54-story, 2,346,000-square-foot office tower, according to Real Capital Analytics. Blackstone purchased a 49% stake in the building from Brookfield in December 2017.
As part of Convene’s long-term strategy, Simonetti has plans to expand its businesses in Manhattan by 46% over the next year, as reported in The Wall Street Journal.