The New York Times building in New York City on June 30, 2016. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

New York Times to Vacate 8 Floors From Its Building to Generate ‘Rental Income’: Memo

The New York Times will vacate at least eight floors of its headquarters in Manhattan to provide a “substantial financial benefit” through the generation of “significant rental income” while making the paper’s employees more “collaborative.”

According to a memo from Times executives Arthur Sulzberger and Mark Thompson, the paper will vacate eight floors of its building, which was completed in 2007. The 1,046-foot-tall skyscraper, located at 620 Eighth Avenue, cost $850 million to complete—with some 58 percent of it owned by the Times Company and the other 42 percent owned by real estate firm Forest City Enterprises.

The staff on those eight floors will work on the remaining, redesigned floors, Politico reported.

“We’ve made the decision to consolidate our footprint across the building to create a more dynamic, modern and open workplace, one that is better suited to the moment,” the two executives wrote to NY Times employees on Friday. “We’re planning significant investments in a redesign of our existing space in order to facilitate more cross-departmental collaboration. We expect a substantial financial benefit as well.”

“All told, we will vacate at least eight floors, allowing us to generate significant rental income.”

The publisher and CEO’s offices, and a few other corner offices, will vanish along with the building redesign.

About 400 employees “in the near term” will have to be moved out of the building to “nearby office space” as the work is being done, the letter said. “We expect that group, which includes parts of marketing, technology, the newsroom, news services, corporate finance and print products and services pre-press operations, to move in the first quarter and return by the end of 2017,” it said.