Meta is done flirting with Fifth Avenue. The tech giant is turning its short-term Midtown pop-up into a full-time statement, signing a 10-year lease to cement Meta Lab New York at 697 Fifth Avenue. The five-level, roughly 15,000-square-foot townhouse next to the St. Regis will be dedicated to hands-on demos of Meta’s AI glasses and VR headsets, a substantial brick-and-mortar bet on one of Manhattan’s most scrutinized retail corridors.
As reported by New York Real Estate Journal, Vornado confirmed that Meta has taken a 10-year lease for the entire five-story, 15,000-square-foot townhouse and will run Meta Lab New York out of the space. Matt Jacobson, Meta’s vice president and creative director for wearables, said, “We’re proud to make a long-term commitment to Fifth Ave., the heart of U.S. retail.” Vornado executive Glen Weiss described the introductory pop-up as an immediate success and pointed to Fifth Avenue’s continued pull for brands that want to make a splash, not just sell product.
Why 697 Fifth Avenue
The townhouse sits at the base of the St. Regis, a trophy spot in a stretch of Fifth Avenue that has been reshuffled repeatedly in recent years. Vornado and its partners have been reconfiguring floors there as luxury and concept retailers trim or rethink their footprints in the wake of the pandemic. Coverage of the block has highlighted marquee tenants scaling back while upper floors cycle open for new ideas, creating an opening for experiential names like Meta to plant a longer-term flag. The Real Deal has been tracking those shifts.
Part of a broader retail push
Meta’s Fifth Avenue play fits into a wider brick-and-mortar push for its wearable AI and XR hardware. The company launched a 20,000-square-foot Meta Lab on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood in 2025 that doubles as both demo floor and event venue, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Midtown spot started life as a far smaller pop-up that still managed to pull long lines and plenty of local chatter for its blue-heavy, skate-inspired design, as noted by Time Out.
What landlords are watching
Brokers say the deal is a reminder that the biggest tech tenants still need in-person touchpoints, even as offices and traditional retail formats keep shifting. Meta already anchors a huge Vornado-affiliated presence at the Farley/Moynihan complex, a roughly 730,000-square-foot commitment made in 2020 that gives the company a major West Side footprint and helps explain why landlords are eager to lock it in on Fifth Avenue as well, according to Commercial Observer. For Vornado, turning a hit pop-up into a long-term tenant fits neatly with its broader effort to revive Midtown retail by courting brands that sell experiences as much as merchandise.
Meta Lab New York will slot in alongside the company’s other retail experiments, including its Burlingame location and a series of recent pop-ups around the country, as part of a test-and-scale strategy for physical stores, New York Real Estate Journal reports. Vornado has not released financial details beyond the lease term, and Meta has yet to announce an official opening date for the full build-out. Once it does open, expect the space to function as a high-profile playground for demos, sales and locally tailored programming rather than a standard storefront.
