Amazon to buy Lord & Taylor’s former NYC building for $1.5B

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Amazon scoops up landmarked Lord & Taylor building

Amazon is buying the former Lord & Taylor building in Midtown for a whopping $1.15 billion in cash, the New York Post reports. The landmarked 11-story Fifth Avenue building will serve as Amazon’s New York City headquarters, and will house several thousand employees in the coming years, a source familiar with the sale told the Post. Amazon is reportedly paying more than $2,000 per square foot for the Midtown property.

Only two years ago, the troubled office-sharing startup WeWork leased the former department store building to become its own headquarters. But WeWork’s plans fell apart last fall when the company and its former CEO Adam Neumann were embroiled in a series of scandals that ultimately derailed its plans to go public.

The former Lord & Taylor building is the latest office space the e-commerce giant has snapped up in New York City. After Amazon’s abrupt exit from a deal that would have brought half of the company’s second North American headquarters to Long Island City, the company has gradually expanded its footprint of Manhattan office space. In December, Amazon leased 335,000 square feet in the Hudson Yards area with plans to house some 1,500 employees there.

And in other news...

• Mayor Bill de Blasio officially declared a state of emergency in New York City on Thursday in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
• Starting Friday at 5 p.m., all venues in the state seating 500 people or less will need to reduce capacity by 50 percent—including restaurants and bars, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio announced Thursday. Events for more than 500 people have been indefinitely banned, prompting a curtail call for all Broadway shows.
• Amid the outbreak, ridership across the MTA’s commuter rails, subways, and buses has dropped dramatically—subway ridership Wednesday was down 18.5 percent from the same Wednesday last year. A high-ranking MTA official said subway service could be scaled back as falling ridership continues amid the outbreak.
• Thursday came with a series of temporary closures by the city’s high-profile cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and many others. For a list of closures, head to our roundup where you’ll find periodic updates on closures and other coronavirus-related news.
• Take a peek inside Coney Island’s first luxury high-rise complex.
• In an effort to curb the single biggest source of non-recycled household waste, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will propose legislation Thursday to mandate New Yorkers separate food and yard scraps. The bill is part of a larger plan to reduce the more than 12 million tons of garbage New Yorkers send to landfills and incinerators each year.
• On the topic of trash, all new apartment buildings with 150 units or more will be required to store trash in special containers in an effort to limit the number of trash piles on city sidewalks, according to a proposal from the city’s sanitation department.