Design Firm Takes Top 2 Floors Of Dock 72 As NYC Office Activity Picks Up
A design firm has signed the biggest office lease in Brooklyn since January, taking the top two floors of Rudin and Boston Properties' ship-inspired Dock 72 building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Huge inked a 12-year deal for 71K SF at the 16-story building, the landlords announced Monday. Huge is the biggest deal at the 670K SF property, which opened in 2019, since WeWork signed a 220K SF pre-lease to kick-start construction.
The lease is for all of the 14th and part of the 15th floors, and it is for Huge’s Global Experience Center, which the release describes as a “complete reimagining” of the traditional workplace. Huge will relocate from 45 Main St. in Dumbo, where it leases roughly 80K SF.
“Dock 72 is the perfect setting for Huge to architect a new era of working for our employees, partners and clients,” Huge CEO Mat Baxter said in a statement. “The disruptions that have transformed our understanding of work these past two years will have been for nothing if we don’t learn from them and chart a new and better course for ourselves.”
Last October, online cooking and home brand Food52 announced it would move its office from Manhattan to 42K SF across a full floor in Dock 72, the first traditional tenant to commit to the building. Reports had emerged last summer that Vice Media was looking at inking a big lease in the property, but the company decided to stay at its current location in Williamsburg.
While the lease is in Brooklyn, it mirrors the promising news in Manhattan's office market, which just closed out its best month since the onset of the pandemic. Manhattan office leasing activity was up 34.4% in July over the previous year, and up 42.8% from June, according to Colliers data. It is Manhattan’s strongest monthly leasing total since January 2020, according to the brokerage.
Huge was represented in-house by Winter Stockwell alongside Cara Chayet, David Hollander, Liz Lash and Ken Rapp of CBRE. Boston Properties Senior Vice President Andrew Levin represented the landlords with Rudin Senior Vice President Robert Steinman, Cushman & Wakefield’s Pierce Hance and CBRE’s Sacha Zarba and Freddie Fackelmayer.
