Updated: Anheuser-Busch InBev signs lease for N.Y. office space
Lager Heads gets the sense that Anheuser-Busch InBev’s new digs in New York City are swanky. They have a European feel and are apparently “to die for,” as our Yankee friends would say.
The accommodations had better be nice, since the asking rate for rents in the building clock in at a cool $90 per square foot - $2.84 million per year in this case. That’s about five times more expensive than Class A office space in downtown St. Louis, and 3.5 times pricier than the same space in Clayton. (Numbers courtesy of Tim Logan, who helps run the Post-Dispatch’s Building Blocks blog.)
Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer, recently signed a 10-year lease for 31,557 feet comprising the entire second floor of 250 Park Avenue, according to the pavement-pounding reporters at the New York Post. The place will become the company’s day-to-day management office. But to clarify: The space is NOT the company’s global headquarters (that’s in Belgium). Nor is it a North American regional headquarters (that’s in St. Louis).
Anheuser-Busch InBev has said that it wanted a New York office because more than 40 percent of the combined company’s revenues come from the U.S. (Tip of the hat to the St. Louis Business Journal for noting the financial angle).
So what is a “functional management office,” exactly? Dang if we know. Something about day-to-day management. Perhaps Lager Heads will be invited at some point for an inspection tour? If so, you’ll be the first to know.
(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)
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Jeremiah McWilliams is a native Virginian who came to the Post-Dispatch in early 2007 to cover beer and other consumer products. He previously covered manufacturing for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Va. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. 
You sure don’t have to know Dutch or Portuguese to read the writing on this wall.
sssooooo. a space to die for, i thought they were cutting back cost. park ave. most expensive street in n.y. brito you are one of three things.
1- the dumbest person in the corp. world.
2- the biggest lier in all the world
3- both 1 and 2
i would say #3. so all of you AB supporters keep drinking the kool aid they gave you and believing what they tell you. jeremiah, dont count on the invite. you are to honest and not a cronnie that will write what ever they tell you.
functional mgmt office must be something like vice pres. of people.
n.y. will eat brito alive. think st.louis was tough, the media in n.y. is all ready gearing up on this one.( this artical stated a reporter there saw this.) 5 years max. no st.louis offices, and no it will not be due to the negitive reaction here. it was probably in the works before the buyout was completed.brito a pox on you!
Thanks ummmm. I appreciate the vote of confidence as to ethics. But we’ll still have to wait and see if that invite comes in. You never know…
That’s just about 3/4 of an acre of high rent digs. “Functional Management Office” sounds like a pretty good definition of “Headquarters” doesn’t it? Spim it anyway you want, but with Brito there (and the select few from Saint Louis and Leuven also relocating) it’ll be a de facto move of headquarters for A-B InBev. It’ll also be a rude awakening for Peacock and Brickey when they find there is no place for them there - or here…..
Bye Bye St Lou. I give it about a year and the whole plant/office on Pestalozzi(splg?) will be shut down and just a memory. I have been buying Miller draft in bottles,good stuff,just can’t support a company that has NO concern for St Lou,or it’s employees.This whole thing with that “Burrito” guy has stunk from day one. What a sorry thing for what was once a great American Corp.
I don’t think we’ll see the brewery go, but North America Headquarters… yup! It’s all part of Brito Supreme’s plan.
A little off subject, but did I read where there wouldn’t be any more layoffs at AB I? Yesterday, everyone at the warehouse was told when their exact date of layoff would be. Aug 28, Oct 30, or Dec 30. My opinion, the Aug date would be the best, god only knows what it’ll be like after that.
250 Park Avenue is a slap in the face to the thousands of American workers who have been laid off by these frauds, and it is an insult to the hundreds of contractors who had to take pay and hourly cuts in order to keep our jobs. It’s also pouring salt in the wounds of the vendors who are suffering the unfair Net 120 payment terms. There is more than 31,557 square feet of unfinished space in the new Hunt’s Point (South Bronx) facility than could have and should have been used for the “Functional Management Office”, but Hunt’s Point obviously isn’t good enough for these egomaniacal, two-faced, lying, hypocritical foreigners. They want to cram us into tiny little cubes with zero privacy and pack every floor in each building like a sardine can, but they can spend millions on swanky digs for themselves.
This is worse than that sick feeling I got when I learned that all of the executives who had supposedly moved up to the new “open office” layout on the 9th floor actually have separate offices scattered around several of the buildings on campus. They have obviously realized that you can’t conduct business in that ridiculous, crowded open floor plan, but they expect the rest of us to buy the lie that it fosters openness and collaboration.
They destroyed our beautiful, stately executive suites on the 9th floor just to make a point. The old 9th floor was a symbol of the American dream and they ripped it to pieces. Yet they have no qualms about surrounding themselves in luxury. They said they want to be close to Grand Central Station so the visiting executives will have easy access to transportation. Like any of those billionaire snobs would even dream of taking the subway!
Brito and his pack of weasels have ripped the soul out of what was one of the greatest and most admired U.S. companies in our country’s history. I hate what I see every day, and it is becoming harder and harder to work in that wretched environment. I can’t wait until I find another job so I can get the hell out of there and stop being treated like a third-world citizen…
And as the great Samuel L. Jackson said in the edited for TV version:
Enough is enough!!! I’ve had it with these monkeyfarming Belgians and Brazilians in this monkeyfarming company!
Functional=financial. This is where the real strategic planning is done, not by a boatload of bozos in the Ozarks. The company will be refinancing debt, and ultimately will issue new shares, after they finally list on the NYSE. The investment banking guys who count are still in NY. In fact, anticipating some probable new business, Morgan Stanley has put a buy recommendation on the stock. The beer barrel polka has resumed, but the A-list party goers are in NY,not STL.