(FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 3/19/15)
By Leslie Scism and Keiko Morris
MetLife Inc. is going home, consolidating its four New York City
locations in the eponymous tower at 200 Park Ave. above Grand
Central Terminal, long associated with the insurance company, a
spokesman said.
MetLife has signed a 12-year lease with Tishman Speyer to
increase its footprint in the building by about 430,000 square
feet.
The firm will shift operations and 1,700 workers to 200 Park
Ave. from 1095 Avenue of the Americas, 277 Park Ave. and 27-01
Queens Plaza North in Long Island City. The moves will occur in
phases beginning in December 2016. All of them are expected to be
wrapped up by the first half of 2017.
The company decided to consolidate its city operations at 200
Park Ave. so it could create a "state-of-the-art space designed to
foster collaboration among our New York City employees, similar to
our new campuses in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina," said a
spokesman.
Costs were also part of the equation. The space at 200 Park Ave.
is less expensive than that at 1095 Avenue of the Americas, the
spokesman said.
Ivanhoe Cambridge and its partner, Callahan Capital Properties,
announced its acquisition of that skyscraper this year for $2.2
billion.
MetLife currently leases about 100,000 square feet on several
floors at 200 Park Ave., including the 57th floor, where there is
an ornate boardroom. About 450 MetLife employees work there
now.
The company traces its history to the 1860s, when a group of New
York City businessmen formed the National Union Life and Limb
Insurance Co. and began insuring Civil War sailors and soldiers
against wartime-related disabilities.
Later that century, it turned its focus to life insurance by
selling "industrial" or "workingmen's" policies that provided
coverage for burial expenses. By the early 1900s, MetLife was one
of the nation's largest life insurers, and today is the nation's
largest life insurer by assets.
Its headquarters in the 1890s were on Madison Square in lower
Manhattan, where directors met in an elaborate, wood-paneled
boardroom. The insurer moved from Madison Square to nearby One
Madison in 1958, dismantling and moving the boardroom to the new
location.
The company acquired the then-named Pan Am building in 1980, and
in 1993 changed the sign atop the building to read MetLife after
Pan Am no longer was a tenant.
In 2005, MetLife moved the boardroom once again, to 200 Park
Ave., the same year it agreed to sell the building for $1.72
billion to a group led by Tishman Speyer. California real-estate
investment firm Irvine Co. now holds a 97.3% stake in the building,
although Tishman Speyer is a managing partner and retains a smaller
stake, according to a person familiar with the building's
ownership.
MetLife retained the name and signage rights to the building at
the time, though it occupied just a few floors in the tower,
including space for the boardroom.
Most of MetLife's New York City employees remained at One
Madison until 2002, when they moved to Long Island City. In 2008,
some of those Long Island City employees were moved to 1095 Avenue
of the Americas.
In leasing the additional square footage, MetLife will be
occupying more space than it ever has at 200 Park Ave. That was
made possible by Barclays PLC's agreement to give up 335,000 square
feet of space in the tower, according to people familiar with the
building's leasing.
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