Cosmetics Company Triples Manhattan Office Presence

Cosmetics company e.l.f. Beauty has inked a 10-year office lease at Meysar Realty Corp.’s 16 W. 22nd St., a 165,000-square-foot office building in Manhattan. The firm has been occupying 13,000 square feet at the property since 2020, and has now extended to 39,000 square feet. GFP Real Estate and Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord and the tenant, respectively.  

Free Agency and Rebecca Minkoff previously occupied the additional 26,000 square feet. The cosmetics firm will utilize the space to further grow its business and focus on global expansion. Earlier this year, e.l.f. Beauty opened its first European office in London, and in 2023, it paid $355 million to acquire Naturium, a skincare brand.

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William Harvey Birkmire is the designer of the steel and masonry office building. Rising 12 stories, 16 W. 22nd St. came online in 1910 and its lobby went through a renovation process in 2003. Features include 13,500-square-foot floorplates, 12-foot ceiling heights, 10-foot column spacing and a floor load of 100 pounds per square foot. A restaurant duo occupies the ground floor.

The mid-rise building is in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. The property’s close to 257 Park Ave. S., the Feil Organization’s 226,000-square-foot The Gramercy Park Building, where PEI Architects signed a 12,617-square-foot lease renewal in April.

GFP Real Estate Senior Managing Director Barbara Yagoda represented Meysar Realty Corp., while Cushman & Wakefield Executive Director Jonathan Schindler spearheaded leasing efforts on behalf of e.l.f. Beauty.

Manhattan office leasing activity reaches seven-quarter high

A total of 6.3 million square feet of office space had been leased across Manhattan in the second quarter of 2024, a recent Cushman & Wakefield report shows, marking the first time in seven quarters when the figure surpassed 6 million.

Despite the leasing momentum, Manhattan’s office vacancy rate keeps rising. Cushman & Wakefield placed the availability rate at 23.6 percent as of June, showing a 120-basis-point increase year-over-year.  

Not all office properties are affected the same, as a CBRE study identified a performance gap between asset classes. The analysis pinpoints a more exclusive denomination than the usual Class A, which was dubbed prime office space.