According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI has leased 90,000 square feet in Manhattan's iconic Puck Building, located in the trendy SoHo neighborhood.
This comes on the heels of the company's recent expansion in San Francisco, where it leased an entire six-story tower in Mission Bay—the city’s largest office lease of the year so far. OpenAI also subleased two other buildings from Uber Technologies in San Francisco about a year ago and is reportedly planning additional office openings.
The decision to establish a presence in New York aligns with a trend among major AI players, including Anthropic and Palantir, which have been securing office space in key cities like New York, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, and Seattle. Industry experts see this as a positive sign for the broader office market, which has faced rising vacancies and rent reductions over the past few years.
“AI isn’t going to be a silver bullet for the office market,” said Jacob Rowden, head of office research for commercial real-estate services firm JLL, “but it’s part of the broader recovery story.”
The Puck Building, a 140-year-old landmark owned by Kushner Cos, also houses Thrive Capital, the venture-capital firm that led OpenAI’s recent $6.6 billion funding round. This familiar connection may have played a role in OpenAI’s decision to choose the historic site for its New York office.