Airbnb buys Park Avenue South office for $81.5M

Airbnb has purchased 281 Park Avenue South, the landmarked Church Missions House in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park, from RFR for $81.5 million, turning the 19th-century building into one of the company’s largest employee hubs outside its San Francisco headquarters.

The 40,000-square-foot building, completed in 1894 for Episcopal missionary work, sits at the southeast corner of Park Avenue South and East 22nd Street. Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’s RFR sold the property, which most recently housed the photography museum Fotografiska before it closed in 2024. Airbnb intends to occupy the building for its own offices rather than lease it out.

Why it matters

The purchase is a notable vote of confidence in New York office space from a tech tenant, at a time when many are still shedding square footage. The developer-relevant fact is not that a tech company committed to New York, it is that it bought instead of leased. Airbnb had been a tenant at 222 Broadway in the Financial District. Owning a small, distinctive, landmarked building rather than taking floors in someone else’s tower is a play a growing set of profitable tech and finance users can now run, because the assets are finally trading. For owners of boutique Manhattan office, that widens the buyer pool beyond investors underwriting a rent roll to occupiers underwriting their own brand.

Resist the discount-office framing, though. RFR paid $50 million for the property in 2014 and listed it in 2022 at $135 million. The $81.5 million clearing price is roughly 40 percent below that ask, but still about 63 percent above the 2014 basis. This was an unrealistic 2022 number meeting a real 2026 buyer, not a distressed owner capitulating. Underwrite the spread accordingly.

It also lands amid an unusual backdrop: Airbnb has spent heavily fighting the city’s Local Law 18, which slashed legal short-term rentals from more than 60,000 to roughly 3,000, and is now buying real estate in the same market that curtailed its core business.

The numbers

The $81.5 million deal values the 40,000-square-foot building at more than $2,000 per square foot, a figure that reflects scarcity and landmark character rather than a bargain-basement office print. The Church Missions House was designated a city landmark in 1979. Airbnb employs more than 600 people in the New York region, and the building is sized to consolidate them into a single owned hub. Chief executive Brian Chesky said the purchase “reflects our long-term commitment to the city.” Airbnb has spent roughly $1 million a year lobbying in the city since the rental law took effect in 2022.

What’s next

Airbnb will build out the company’s offices in the restored landmark, adding a marquee East Coast base. “New York City has been part of our story since the earliest days of Airbnb,” said CEO Brian Chesky, framing the purchase as a long-term commitment to the market.