SANDOW® (sandow.com), a leader in building multiplatform brands that meet at the intersection of luxury and design, has signed a lease with Rockefeller Group for nearly 40,000 square feet of space in Midtown Manhattan’s iconic Time-Life Building, today announced Adam I. Sandow, chairman and CEO, SANDOW. The company will occupy the entire 17th floor of the Time-Life Building, located at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, and plans to open its new office in spring 2013.
SANDOW brands-which include NewBeauty, Interior Design, Worth, Fred Segal, Luxe Interiors + Design, Culture + Commerce, Material ConneXion and Furniture/Today Group-span digital and print media, licensing, consulting, e-commerce/retail, business information and marketing services. The company, which has grown to more than 400 employees in 14 offices around the world, currently has more staff in New York City than anywhere else, including the company’s corporate headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, where SANDOW recently moved into a new 30,000 square foot, state-of-the-art new office.
SANDOW has selected Gensler, the award-winning architecture and design firm, to design its new headquarters in New York. Cindy Allen, editor-in-chief of Interior Design, the design industry’s authority, is collaborating with Sandow and Gensler on the look of the offices. The company worked with David Falk and Jason Greenstein from Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, one of the world’s leading commercial real estate advisory firms, on its search.
“It was critical to find a single floorplate that would allow us to have all of our brands in one place,” added Sandow. “David and his team at Newmark did an extraordinary job in leading us to one of the most iconic buildings in New York, which will position us for our next phase of development.”
Through a series of acquisitions and aggressive growth, SANDOW had increased its headcount in New York by more than 600 percent since 2010, and had been operating out of two separate Manhattan offices.
“The time had come for us to establish a global headquarters in New York City, the heart of many of the industries our businesses exist in-such as beauty, design, media, finance, and fashion,” said Sandow. “Working with Gensler, our goal is to create an innovative space that fuels collaboration and cross-pollination among our brands, clients and partners.”
The offices will feature the world’s largest materials library created by SANDOW subsidiary Material ConneXion, a global materials consultancy with locations all over the world, from Milan to Shanghai. The library will house more than 7,000 advanced and sustainable materials curated by the company’s worldwide team of material scientists and experts, led by Dr. Andrew Dent. In addition, a gallery and event space will feature a rotating series of exhibitions on art, materials and innovation throughout the year.
“On a daily basis, our company’s cross-section of brands interacts with so many creative minds from around the world-from industrial designers, to CEOs of some of the world’s largest luxury companies, as well as groundbreaking architects and interior designers,” said Michele Caniato, president of SANDOW companies Culture + Commerce and Material ConneXion. “This new location will serve as a place where all of this talent can converge, collaborate and help stimulate innovation and new business ideas.”
The space will also include a Fred Segal concept studio, designed to test and mock up store designs, fixtures and merchandising ideas, and a state-of-the-art video studio that will enable each brand to create in-house video content to be distributed through various channels.
“We have so much to look forward to with fabulous new digs-designed by Gensler, with whom we’ve had a very long relationship. The new space will give us an exciting opportunity to create community and success together as a company,” said Interior Design’s Cindy Allen.
About SANDOW®
Founded by visionary media entrepreneur Adam I. Sandow in 2003, SANDOW® (sandow.com) is a leader in building multi-platform brands that inform, inspire and engage highly coveted consumer and business audiences. Meeting at the intersection of luxury and design, the SANDOW brands-all powered by innovation-span digital and print media, licensing, consulting, e-commerce and retail, business information and marketing services. Its diverse group of companies allows SANDOW to strategically cross-pollinate and create unique business models that help drive its aggressive growth. With more than 400 employees in 14 global offices, SANDOW brands include Culture + CommerceTM, Curator/TM, Fred Segal®, Furniture/Today® Group, Interior Design®, Luxe Interiors + Design®, Material ConneXionTM, NewBeauty®, Spalook.comTM, Watch Journal® and Worth®.
About Newmark Grubb Knight Frank
Newmark Grubb Knight Frank is one of the largest commercial real estate service firms in the U.S. and together with its affiliates and London-based partner Knight Frank employs over 11,000 professionals operating from more than 300 offices globally, with over 680 million square feet under management. A major force in the real estate marketplace, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank is meeting the local and global needs of tenants, owners, investors and developers worldwide. For further information, visit www.newmarkkf.com.
Newmark Grubb Knight Frank is a part of BGC Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: BGCP), a leading global brokerage company primarily servicing the wholesale financial and real estate markets. For further information, visit www.bgcpartners.com.