The legacy publisher of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair refuses to pay $2.4 million in rent at One World Trade
- Amid a rent dispute, Condé Nast refuses to pay $2.4 million in rent at One World Trade.
- Condé Nast publishes The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Bon Appetit, among other magazines.
- The publisher is considered an "anchor" tenant at the new World Trade Center.
At One World Trade, the reflective skyscraper that replaced the original World Trade Center, the rent is too damn high for at least one resident: legacy magazine publisher Condé Nast.
The publisher of The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair refuses to pay $2.4 million in a rent dispute with the its landlords, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.
In a statement to the WSJ, Condé's owner, Advance Publications Inc., said it "continues to be in discussions about bringing the lease in 1WTC into line with current market conditions and its ongoing needs at that location." The $2.4 million in dispute is for the month of January alone, and it could withhold subsequent monthly payments, the company said in the statement.
Condé has been at One World Trade since 2014, when it took up a lease for 1.2 million square feet and became an "anchor" tenant of the building. The company has since sub-leased some of that space to tenants of its own, and began looking for less expensive office space elsewhere, the WSJ reported.
But with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic stretching into a second year, and many employees still working remotely, expensive office space makes less business sense than ever.
As a result, some office landlords are lowering rents to entice big companies like Facebook, which got a 9% discount on the Farley Building on Manhattan's West Side.
In the case of Condé Nast at One World Trade, its landlord said the current market situation is immaterial.
"These companies are entirely capable of satisfying their legal obligations," Port Authority spokesman Ben Branham told the WSJ, "and the Port Authority has strong rights to enforce full payment."