Lyft, the ride-sharing app, is moving its New York City operations to Long Island City, Queens. The company just signed on for 5,000 square feet at the Falchi Building, taking a portion of the fourth floor in the six-story, roughly 570,000-square-foot property, in a lease set to run for just over two years.
The company is part of the booming tech sector that landlords in emerging office markets like Long Island City and Brooklyn are trying to lure from Manhattan with cheaper rents and more-creative aesthetics.
Jamestown, which in 2012 purchased the property, a former Gimbels department store warehouse, has created a small food court at the building. The landlord has encouraged tenants such as Juice Press, which took office space there earlier this year, to establish a retail presence downstairs in order to provide more amenities for other occupants.
The approach that Jamestown is taking is similar to the concept that it helped pioneer 17 years ago at another property it owns in the city, Chelsea Market. That thriving retail concourse has become not just a popular draw for office tenants and shoppers alike, but also a model for the creators of other malls around the city in recent years.
