From left: 250 Hudson Street in Hudson Square, American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault and Serve debit cards
As American Express shuts down its hobbled enterprise growth division, Jack Resnick & Sons has begun marketing for sublease the 27,000-square-foot Hudson Square office that housed the initiative targeting a less wealthy customer base.
The Financial District-based credit card giant launched the division in 2010, developing a new line of reloadable prepaid debit cards. Enough people left home without the cards that the company announced it would slash 170 enterprise growth jobs in New York and Florida, and canceled a product launch in Mexico.
As a result, the division’s employees occupying the sixth floor of Jack Resnick & Sons’ 250 Hudson Street will soon vacate, less than halfway into the 10-year lease. American Express inked a deal in 2011, which at the time brought the 16-story, 400,000-square-foot office property to full occupancy. The company has occupied the space for about four-and-a-half years to date.
A spokesperson for American Express confirmed the full space is being marketed for sublease. Jack Resnick & Sons’ Brett Greenberg and Dennis Brady, who declined to comment, are handling the marketing. CBRE’s Michael Liss and Bruce Surry, who also declined to comment, are repping American Express.
The landlord, which owns and manages over 5 million square feet of space in Manhattan, acquired the former printing trades building in 1968 and completed a $40 million, full-building renovation in 2008. Other tenants at 250 Hudson Street include public relations firm Edelman and advertising agency Interpublic Group of Companies, which expanded to more than 50,000 square feet there last year.
Asking rents at the Class A building range from the low-$40s to low-$70s per square foot.
American Express is currently headquartered at Brookfield Place’s 200 Vesey Street, occupying about 1.3 million square feet, according to CoStar. The company is set to vacate 299,000 square feet sometime this year, Colliers International data show. The company owns the portion of the property it occupies; Brookfield Property Partners owns the rest.
Although the enterprise growth division is closing, the company will continue to offer the prepaid debit cards, a hallmark of the unit, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Dan Schulman was CEO of the enterprise growth division from 2010 to 2014, when he left to become CEO at PayPal.
Source: Dash or credit: AmEx’s Hudson Sq. digs marketed for sublease