Vornado Realty Trust VNO announced that Meta has signed into a 10-year lease for its Meta Lab New York retail flagship location at Vornado’s 697 Fifth Avenue, a full five-level, 15,000-square-foot townhouse building, adjacent to the St. Regis Hotel. This marks the first flagship retail location for Meta in Manhattan.
Meta Lab is a people-first experiential retail space that reimagines traditional shopping as a celebration of community, culture, and creative self-expression. Meta Lab invites visitors to experience Meta’s leading AI glasses and virtual reality headsets, making it easy to understand how the technology works and imagine how it fits into everyday life.
Per Glen Weiss, executive vice president and co-head of Real Estate of Vornado, “As evidenced by Meta Lab’s immediate and tremendous success during its introductory pop-up at this location, Fifth Avenue remains one of the most attractive retail corridors in the world for today’s most innovative and iconic brands. We are thrilled to further extend our long-standing relationship with Meta and applaud their permanent entry into New York City’s retail landscape.”
The above lease at 697 Fifth Avenue underscores Vornado’s successful diversification into alternative property uses, such as premium retail flagships. Securing a high-profile tenant like Meta for a 10-years term bolsters the company’s long-term outlook and signals strong demand for VNO’s prime Manhattan assets.
Vornado boasts a concentration of high-quality assets and a strategic focus on expanding its market share in the New York City office market. In addition, the company has a controlling interest in 555 California Street in the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District and owns theMART in Chicago’s River North District, which are iconic office assets in signature cities.
In the past month, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have decreased 11.3% compared with the industry’s fall 3.6%.
Zacks Investment Research
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Some better-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are Gladstone Land LAND and Piedmont Realty Trust, Inc. PDM, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for LAND’s 2026 FFO per share is pinned at 43 cents. This indicates year-over-year growth of 10.3% for 2026.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PDM’s 2026 FFO per share is pegged at $1.49. This implies year-over-year growth of 5.7% for 2026.