Jamestown Properties announced yesterday that it has signed China New Media Company, a rapidly growing Chinese outdoor media company, to a one-year lease deal for a 684-foot LED screen on the 1 Times Square building.
The sign, which will be lit to the world on March 1, will be China New Media Company’s first digital signage outside of China, the company announced in a press release yesterday.
Jamestown Properties, which recently became the majority stakeholder of 1 Times Square after it bought out Sherwood Equities with its newly formed open-ended fund Jamestown Premier Property Fund, said that this signage deal comes just after Dunkin’ Donuts renewed its current deal for a sign on the top of the building.
This deal highlights “the relevance of our building as an international broadcast point for new year’s eve and brand extension for companies,” said Michael Phillips, Chief Operating Officer at Jamestown Properties.
One Times Square has 27 sign locations on the exterior of the property.
China New Media, which launched in 2000 as Dalian Vastitude Media Group, is based in the Northwestern Chinese city of Dalian, where it operates the city’s largest outdoor media network.
Jamestown had previously co-owned 1 Times Square in the firm’s closed-end fund, which only permitted the company to own the building in a 7-to-12 year window (it had an investment in the building for 14 years, said Mr. Phillips).
“It was at the end of its life and had been a good investment for those investors and they were ready to sell, and so we launched a new fund to continue our ownership of it,” said Mr. Phillips. “We thought it was a good asset to own.”
Now that 1 Times Square is owned in an open vehicle like the Jamestown Premier Property Fund, it can be owned for an infinite period of time, said Mr. Phillips.
