EMI, Chelsea Market will make sweet music together

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 7 / November 10 - 16, 2006

By Lori Haught

EMI Music Publishing will be the newest tenant at Chelsea Market come next September.
According to the New York Post, the deal will bring the Chelsea Market’s 1 million square feet of office space to nearly 100 percent occupancy.

An EMI representative said that the move was spurred by the company’s wanting to bring everyone under one roof, as well as getting out of its current Midtown “corporate environment.” Currently, the company is located at 1290 Sixth Ave. and 810 Seventh Ave.

EMI said that Chelsea’s neighborhood and creative feel were what was enticing about 75 Ninth Ave., even if the asked-for rent — $50 per square foot — is more than $3.27 million for the 65,493 square feet of its new digs. The total space is approximately equivalent to their two current locations combined.

The Post said that Chelsea Market was also happy with the arrangement.

“Our goal was to find another media/communications tenant that’s a good match for the building,” David Falk, of Newmark Knight Frank, which represented Chelsea Market, told the Post.

EMI is the world’s largest independent music company. EMI Music Publishing owns the largest catalogue of songs in the world, containing over 1 million contemporary and classic titles. Its catalogue of best-selling songs includes “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” “New York, New York,” “Over the Rainbow,” the James Bond theme, “Singin’ in The Rain,” “Wild Thing,” “We Will Rock You,” “Daydream Believer” and is home to many of the world’s top songwriters, including Eminem, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Usher, Arctic Monkeys and James Blunt.

Part of a complex of 22 former National Biscuit Company buildings, Chelsea Market — located between Ninth and 10th Aves. and 15th and 16th Sts. — was purchased in the 1990s by Irwin B. Cohen, who has filled its upper floors with an emerging group of technological companies.

Other prominent tenants in the Chelsea Market building include New York 1 news, Oyxgen Media, MLB.com (Major League Baseball’s Web site) and the Food Network. The ground floor includes a popular arcade of food shops and stores, including the likes of Amy’s Bread, Chelsea Wine Vault, Hale and Hearty Soups, Fat Witch Bakery and The Lobster Place.