Sotheby’s has sold its longtime New York headquarters at 1334 York Avenue, ahead of the auction house’s relocation to the historic Breuer Building on Madison Avenue next month.
The real estate deal, first reported by Bloomberg, will transfer ownership of the longtime home of Sotheby’s in New York to Weill Cornell Medicine, the medical school and research branch of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Weill Cornell already owns a cluster of properties just south of Sotheby’s. Sotheby’s declined to comment to The Art Newspaper on the price. Weill Cornell confirmed the acquisition. Bloomberg reports the price was around $510m.
In an internal e-mail sent to Sotheby’s staff on Thursday (2 October) morning, chief executive Charles F. Stewart wrote the move would be “very financially beneficial” and will allow Sotheby’s to “further reduce debt and invest even more fully in our core business”. The deal will lower the auction house’s annual net costs, he says.
The transaction appears to be a shift from Sotheby’s previous plan—last year, after Sotheby’s announced the acquisition of the Marcel Breuer-designed landmark that used to house the Whitney Museum of American Art for a reported $100m, the auction house said it would lease about half the space of the York Avenue location to Weill Cornell, which currently occupies space on the building's fifth and sixth floors. Sotheby’s staff were told that under the new deal, Weill Cornell are scheduled to move into the first four floors on 1 April 2026, while Sotheby’s will lease the 7th to 10th floors.
Sotheby’s has called the former cigar factory and Kodak warehouse home for more than 40 years. The auction house moved in in 1980 after paying $11m for the space and spending an additional $140m on expansion and renovations.
Sotheby’s previously sold 1334 York Avenue in 2002—to help cover the auction house’s debt amid the price-fixing scandal—for $175m to RFR Holding, the real estate firm founded by billionaire collectors Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs. RFR Holding leased space back to Sotheby’s until 2009, when the auction house purchased the building back for $370m.
After the French Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi acquired Sotheby’s in 2019 and took the auction house private, he transferred ownership of the actual 1334 York Avenue property to a holding company that has leased it to Sotheby’s since, though rumours had swirled about the exploration of potential sales. Sotheby’s spent $55m on renovations in 2019.
Sotheby’s is set to host the house’s first sales in its new Breuer Building digs next month. The auction house has secured a number of impressive consignments, including the collections of Jay and Cindy Pritzker and Leonard Lauder, estimated to sell for around $120m and $400m, respectively.
