PRH Will Consolidate Penguin Employees In Broadway Building in Early 2019

Publishers Lunch

Penguin Random House ceo Markus Dohle announced to staff in a letter that Penguin employees currently working at 375 Hudson Street and 345 Hudson Street will move uptown in early 2019 as the company takes over "essentially" the entire office space at 1745 Broadway. (The building has a residential component comprising the upper floors, in addition to the 25-story office condo.) Aside from the operational efficiencies and collegiality, Dohle says the company will save "approximately $20 million annually" in expenses after consolidating.

Acknowledging having told employees previously "that there were no plans in the works" to consolidate the two groups, Dohle writes that "our landlord at 1745 Broadway presented us with an unanticipated, one-time opportunity to accommodate us all in our midtown location at a greatly reduced long-term rent." At the same time, he promises employees, "The building move will bring about physical shifts for many teams, but it will not cause our organizational structure to change in any way."

When Random House first moved into the office space in 2003 right after it was built, they were consolidating Random House and Bantam Doubleday Dell into one building for the first time, filling the entire 674,000 square feet of space, and Random House has held the lease to that space ever since.