The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds

Writ large

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

A heavyweight Manhattan law firm is transferring some of its back office employees to Metrotech, but the firm’s attorneys won’t dirty their white shoes in Downtown Brooklyn.

News that the venerable firm of Weil, Gotshal will relocate workers from its IT, finance and operations departments, currently in Midtown, to Bruce Ratner’s Downtown campus this summer was hailed as a major win for the Brooklyn business community.

But the announcement initially sounded more monumental for Metrotech — whose tenants include behind-the-scenes employees of JPMorgan Chase and Bear Stearns. On Tuesday, Forest City Ratner Executive Vice President MaryAnne Gilmartin trumpeted the Weil, Gotshal news at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable, claiming that the deal would involve high-priced law partners and their big expense accounts.

Such “front office” relocations are “a paragon shift” for Metrotech, Gilmartin said.

But hours later, the law firm put out a press release that revealed that only a small portion of its staff will move to 15 Metrotech, between the Myrtle Avenue promenade and Tech Place, this summer. The firm would not say how many of its 1,300 Manhattan-based employees would end up in Brooklyn.

Still, Downtown boosters were pleased by the news.

“Attracting a blue-chip law firm to the mix of tenants here sends a strong signal that Brooklyn’s economy is strong,” said Robert Catell, co-chairman of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.

The Weil, Gotshal report follows other rental news for Ratner’s Metrotech complex. El Diario, the Spanish-language newspaper, recently inked a deal for office space there.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

←Brooklyn Heights: Bossert sold?
→Atlantic Yards: Tale of the tape: Cory vs. Marty

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.