Sotheby's New York headquarters.Corbis via Getty Images

Sotheby’s Relinquishes Half of Longtime Manhattan Headquarters to Medical School

by · ARTnews

Sotheby’s will cede around half of the space at their Manhattan headquarters to a new neighbor, Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), Cornell University’s medical school and research body.

As first reported by Artnet News, WCM will begin moving in early next year with an anticipated opening date of late 2026. Sotheby’s has been the only entity in 1134 York Avenue since 2020, after billionaire Patrick Drahi bought the storied auction house in 2019 for $3.7 billion and took the company private. According to Artnet News, Sotheby’s has a lease on the 10-story building through 2035 with a yearly rent of $42.1 million, paid to a holding company set up by Drahi after the Sotheby’s purchase, which owns the building.

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Weill Cornell will lease 200,000 square feet of 1334 York Avenue, replacing Sotheby’s galleries on the fifth through the ninth floors with cutting-edge medical research equipment and laboratories. A source familiar with the arrangement said there will be no overlap between the Sotheby’s staff and the Weill Cornell staff. By the time WCM will have moved in, Sotheby’s will have relocated to the Breuer Building, which it purchased from the Whitney Museum of American Art earlier this year. The Breuer will serve as Sotheby’s new global headquarters.

The real estate developments at 1334 York Avenue are part of Sotheby’s relocation plan, a spokesperson told ARTnews, and come as Drahi seems to be evaluating his assets in the face of a $60 billion debt and significant tax charges in Switzerland. Drahi’s money troubles are compounded by allegations of money laundering and tax fraud by a fellow executive at his telecom-slash-media company, Altice. 

A spokesperson for the auction house told ARTnews that “the leasing of some of our space at 1334 York Avenue is a continuation of the strategic transformation of our operational process and client experience in New York. Sotheby’s will continue to host exhibitions and auctions without disruption at 1334 York Ave until 2025.”