Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
It's Official: Condé Nast Will Move To 1 World Trade Center
By
Jen Chung
Published May 18, 2011
Modified May 18, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Port Authority
By
Jen Chung
Published May 18, 2011
Modified May 18, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
After a year of speculation, Condé Nast, whose publications include Vogue, The New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, and GQ, has agreed to lease 1 million square feet at One World Trade Center. Employees will start to move there in 2014 and the NY Times says the deal gives "ground zero a much-needed corporate anchor with a proven ability to attract other businesses." Also, the Port Authority figured out a way to make Condé Nast feel okay!
Many Conde Nast employees have not been thrilled with the idea of the move, telling the Post last year, It's just depressing. Everybody is pretty bummed out about it. Nobody wants to move down there," and "If I'm still here by then, just shoot me." But financial concerns won over the company, because its current rents at 4 Times Square will jump in a few years; the Times explains, "To attract Condé Nast, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, had to take on some risk, notably by agreeing to assume the last four or five years of the company’s current lease in Times Square. But the deal, worth an estimated $2 billion over 25 years, still represents a victory for the Port Authority, which has suffered criticism for years of missteps, delays and political squabbling over the rebuilding of the trade center."
Also, the Times reports, "Condé Nast executives drilled down to the finest details to understand the building and the site, pondering what would happen if, for instance, a Ralph Lauren wanted to pull up to the building in a limousine. Would he be able to get in? To give them comfort, Port Authority executives provided extensive traffic studies for both black cars and delivery vehicles, with data on vehicular flows and travel times from Brooklyn, the Upper East and West Sides and Jersey City."
The Post's Steve Cuozzo is thrilled with the deal, "It vindicates those rare New York public officials and real-estate executives who embraced rebuilding without qualifying, hedging or back-burnering it. It repudiates those who lobbied or propagandized against it. And, of course, it forever alters the perception that the "Financial District" would always be mainly about finance, notwithstanding its recent rise as a residential neighborhood and an uptick in leases to media companies."
Last year, a Condé Nast staffer told the Observer, "Basically everyone wants to get out of Times Square officially anyway. I did have a flash of concern. Of all the addresses in the world, do I really want mine to be One World Trade Center? ... Could you really pick a better target than Condé Nast? Literally everything that's wrong with the West.”
Tagged
9/11
conde nast
one world trade center
port authority
wtc
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
NYC tow companies busted for ripping off drivers must give $67K in refunds, city says
Mayor Mamdani has expanded enforcement on towing scams, but the unlicensed towing industry remains largely unregulated.
By
Liam Quigley
Published Oct 2, 2026 at 4:47 p.m. ET
Off-duty NYPD officer stabbed in the Bronx, police say
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Commissioner Jessica Tisch visited the officer in the hospital.
By
Ryan Kost
News
Off-duty NYPD officer stabbed in the Bronx, police say
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Commissioner Jessica Tisch visited the officer in the hospital.
By
Ryan Kost
DOC negligence factored in death at Rikers' Bellevue hospital outpost, jail officials say
By
Brittany Kriegstein
Conductor on NYC subway that dragged man to death may have skipped safety check, source says
By
Stephen Nessen
NYPD still searching for man who threw burning substance on victim in East Harlem
By
Ryan Kost
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .