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Hearst Corp. is planning a major development on Eighth Avenue, joining the gaggle of media companies consolidating their expanding operations with impressive headquarters buildings.
Like Conde Nast, Reuters America Holdings, The New York Times and Time Warner, Hearst is crafting its plans on the red-hot west side of midtown.
The media giant's three-pronged strategy entails adding a structure above its landmarked headquarters at 959 Eighth Ave., building an office tower a block south at Eighth Avenue and West 55th Street, and renting additional room from neighboring landlords.
With available space becoming ever scarcer and office rents rising into the $80s and $90s a square foot, big companies that need room to grow in Manhattan are being driven to build their own. The print and television powerhouse, with estimated yearly revenues of $2.2 billion and a pack of magazines including Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Esquire, has the advantage of already owning land where it can build.
"It's Economics 101: supply, none; demand, huge; numbers, off the charts," says Louis J. Somoza, a senior vice president at Rudin Management Co. His firm is codeveloping a new skyscraper in Times Square...