The world's largest promoter is making its new home in one of NYC's trendiest neighborhoods.
Live Nation, the world's largest music promoter, is moving its longtime headquarters from Times Square to a 100,000-square-foot building at 430 West 15th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues in the heart of New York City's trendy Meatpacking District, a source has confirmed.
The news originally broke on The Real Deal, which reported that Live Nation had subleased the new building from current tenant Palantir Technologies. The promoter currently leases the entire 230,000-square-foot building at 220 West 42nd Street through a 20-year deal signed in 2000 by the company's former incarnation as SFX Entertainment. Live Nation, according to the report, has sublet much of its former space to other companies.
Live Nation declined to comment for this story, and Palentir Technologies didn't return request for comment.
This past November, Live Nation reported another record quarter, earning $3.21 billion in the third quarter -- a whopping 23 percent increase year-over-year.
The new Live Nation headquarters will share the neighborhood with Google as well as retail outlets for Samsung and Apple, which has a store prominently positioned at the pedestrian plaza on 9th Avenue and 14th Street.
There is perhaps no greater symbol of gentrification in New York City than downtown's Meatpacking District, which throughout most of the '90s still processed meat by day and became something of a transgressive clubland by night. The neighborhood's vaunted venues included the tri-level multi-genre dance club Mars, the Jackie 60 party at Mother's, the legendary BDSM Hellfire Club and the underground (literally) performance space the Cooler (once a literal meat cooler).
Throughout the aughts, the neighborhood gradually became something of an upscale and overdeveloped tourist destination. The arrival of boutiques and the exclusive Soho House, the High Line (a once dilapidated raised railway that was transformed into an art-minded public park/walkway and completed in 2014), the sprawling Standard Hotel and the downtown Whitney Museum designed by Renzo Piano pushed out the underground S&M clubs, which were replaced by bottle-service clubs like Le Bain on the roof of the Standard and 1OAK, among others.