It’s no secret that Sotheby’s has been undergoing its fair share of changes this year amid a staff exodus and overhaul of its general strategy. But is the auction house also considering a new home?
According to the New York Post, Sotheby’s has retained Peter Riguardi of commercial real estate company JLL to help it search for a new location, possibly in the Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s far west side, where luxury retailer Coach has just moved into its impressively large headquarters.
Trains sit on tracks at Hudson Yards after a groundbreaking ceremony for development at the site which is expected to boast 13 million square feet of residential and commercial space on a 26-acre site on Manhattan?s west side on December 4, 2012 in New York City. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
However, Riguardi told artnet News via email: “The information about Sotheby’s is completely incorrect.”
Reporter Lois Weiss cited a New York Post article from December 2013, which stated that Sotheby’s was “scouring Manhattan for a new location,” but noted that any move was “contingent on the sale of its entire purpose-built auction headquarters on the Upper East Side.”
At that time, said Weiss, options included: “the Time Warner Center studio spaces and office, the Sony Wonder Technology Lab space at 550 Madison, the Trump Organization’s Niketown at 6 W. 57th St., and, of course, even Hudson Yards, which was then just a hole in the ground.”
All of those options are “still viable,” she writes, adding: “We hear Hudson Yards’ lead developer, the Related Cos. Chairman Stephen Ross, is also making a big play to snag Sotheby’s.”
Ross owns the offices and studios at Time Warner’s Columbus Circle. They will be vacant when move to his Hudson Yards, “giving him two scenarios in which to land Sotheby’s,” she writes. “Since Ross enjoys taking over other people’s properties once they rent or buy from him, don’t be surprised if he ends up with Sotheby’s current building.”
Mike Goss, Sotheby’s Chief Financial Officer, did not directly respond to queries about a possible move to Hudson Yards, but wrote in a statement to artnet News: “We have two options—we can stay where we are, or we can move somewhere else in Manhattan—and we have no time pressure to decide anything.”