Posted by Leonard Steinberg on January 24th, 2014

Twitter is coming to Chelsea, joining Google as the two most important tech companies in the area. Their 141,000 square-foot new base is just one block from Google on Eighth Avenue.

The buildings used to be wagon warehouses: now the two are connected loft buildings at 245 and 249 W. 17th St. between 8th and 9th avenues. They were purchased by Savanna in 2012  for $76 million and redeveloped with a $21 million upgrade with an eye on rounding up a tech tenant.

Room & Board leased 60,000 square feet for a giant retail store on the first three floors of 249 West 17th Street.  Twitter had been negotiating at Minskoff’s 51 Astor Place in Noho but lost out when IBM’s Watson Group grabbed the lower floors, leaving higher floors that would rent for over $100/sf…..in Chelsea they will be paying only $70/sf.

Will this new infusion of wealthy tech geeks further fuel the West Chelsea real estate boom? I feel certain it will. Who would not want to walk to work, thereby saving a commute time what for many amounts to a 2 week annual vacation?