http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/09/new-york-times-publisher-headquarters
New York Times publisher to sell headquarters Daniel Nasaw in Washington guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 March 2009 17.32 GMT The New York Times building: designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. Photograph: Ramin Talaie/Corbis The hard-pressed publisher of the New York Times will sell almost half its new flagship headquarters to an investment firm and lease the office space back, the company said today. The New York Times Company has said it would sell 21 of the 52 floors of its midtown Manhattan building to WP Carey and Company, an investment management firm, for $225m (£163m). Carey will lease the space back to the Times for $24m for the first year - with the rent expected to rise. The NYT Company will use the proceeds to retire long-term debt. The deal trades about 750,000 sq ft of space. The lease term runs 15 years and the NYT Company may repurchase the space after 10 years for $250m. The cash-strapped publisher of the NYT, the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and other media properties saw its revenue decline 8% in 2008, to $2.9bn, on a continuing decline in advertising dollars due to the global economic downturn. The building, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, was completed in 2007. Last summer the company was forced to alter the facade of the building after three men in five weeks scaled the skyscraper.
