Firms flee midtown rent run-up; 30% rise and counting has many weighing moves out of the area.(Real Estate Report)

Crain's New York Business, January, 2007 by Marks, Andrew

Byline: Andrew Marks For more than two decades, the U.S. publishing arm of EMI Group happily called midtown Manhattan home. Early last year, when the company opened negotiations about renewing its lease, the good times ended. "The landlord wanted a rent that was substantially more than we're used to paying, and then the price kept going up every time we talked,'' says Roger Faxon, co-chief executive of EMI Music Publishing.

Instead of biting the bullet and remaining in their two Rockefeller Center locations, EMI executives chose to decamp to Chelsea. There, the scene is far trendier, and the rents are significantly lower. Mr. Faxon reports that the move has brought significant cost savings. "We love midtown, but we realized we don't need to be...