NEW YORK CITY—Bank of New York Mellon Corp. is mulling twodifferent locations for a move from its Downtown headquarters,according to Bloomberg. The financial firm is decidingbetween a lower Manhattan skyscraper and a smaller office buildingin New Jersey for at least 850 employees who would relocate—andneed to lease 400,000 square feet of space—following a sale ofBNY's building at One Wall St.

One of the bank's top candidates is 225 Liberty St., a 2.7million-square-foot tower at Brookfield that was once mostly leasedto Merrill Lynch & Co., reports a person with knowledge of thenegotiations. The other front-runner is a 410,000-square-footwaterfront building at 70 Hudson St. in Jersey City, theperson said. Alternatives haven't been ruled out. The governmentsof New York and New Jersey are said to be putting together packagesof benefits designed to sway BNY Mellon's decision for a move.

“They're playing the New Jersey thing off of New York right now,trying to get some reasonable level of incentives,” says PeterHennessy, president of the New York tri-state region for brokerageCassidy Turley—which isn't involved in the lease discussions—toBloomberg. “It's important for New York to retain thestature of downtown as one of the key financial markets in theworld.”