When Condé Nast finally moves into its new downtown digs at 1 WTC, many of the denizens of the city’s glitziest publishing house will be in a for a rude surprise: the new office plan calls for open floor seating in the 1 million square feet of office space.
That’s a dramatic reversal from the current headquarters at Times Square, where walled offices are the rule, not the exception, and the Condé Nasties fought hard for each square inch of office space.
The toniest digs in the Midtown office, which went to upper level executives and chief editors, such as Anna Wintour, of Vogue; Graydon Carter, of Vanity Fair; or David Remnick, of The New Yorker, were huge offices featuring private bathrooms.
Some executive suites were even said to have showers. That is likely to come to a dramatic end.
“They are very interested in the whole cubicle world,” said one insider.
While there was a flurry of new publicity recently about agreeing to the 25-year lease downtown, the plans were actually being drawn up late last year, and tentative plans were shown to some select senior people in recent months.
So far, the design plans are not being shared with the staff. And for good reason.
“I think it will be horribly received in many parts of the building,” said one source, who noted that office space is deemed very precious in status-conscious Condé Nast.
In the new layout that only a precious few have seen, far fewer will have glass offices.
And even though just a few have seen the office-lite plans for 1 WTC, grumbling has already begun.
“Newsrooms are all about speed and accuracy,” said one Condé Nasty. “The kind of writing we do is much more involved with style. You need quiet.”
In the Condé Nast headquarters, there are five levels of office space, ranked from A, for top-level editors and publishers, which are corner offices with windows, to E level, where assistants and junior staffers are sitting in the open. But even the D level office space in the current headquarters have walls and doors — although that level would be relegated to interior windowless space.
New job
Bill Wackermann, the publications director of a slew of Condé Nast titles, including its second-most profitable one, Glamour, is said to be searching for a hands-on publisher to take over the role for that magazine. The news broke yesterday on Adweek.com and insiders confirmed the search is indeed on.
The company is said to be looking outside the company for a replacement. Wackermann has been the de facto publisher, but he also has responsibility for Details, W and Bon Appétit.
Sources say that the company would love to set its sites on Kim Kelleher, the former publisher of Self. Kelleher is said to have shot down the rumor at a staff meeting yesterday. The other target could be Connie Anne Phillips, the InStyle publisher, who had been a No. 2 at Vogue before jumping ship.
But complicating any potential raid could be Time Inc. contracts and non-compete agreements. Kelleher, in particular was just promoted to global publisher of Time magazine, from publisher of just the domestic edition.
Ad pages
Media Industry Newsletter is set to release its first half numbers for ad pages in monthly magazines today and they will show that in the closely watched fashion titles it is nearly a dead heat between InStyle and Vogue.
For the first half, InStyle is up 14.5 percent to 1,156 compared to 1,009 in the year-ago first half. That puts it just ahead of Vogue, which jumped 11.1 percent to 1,094, from 985 a year ago — with Publisher Susan Plagemann at the helm.
Elle, which is in the final stages of being sold with the rest of the Hachette Filipacchi titles as part of a deal with Hearst, actually showed a 15.1 percent gain to 1,082, compared to 940 in the first half last year. That may bolster the status of Elle Publishing Director Robin Domeniconi when the merger is finalized in the next few weeks.
Bringing up the rear is Hearst’s Harper’s Bazaar, where ad pages dropped 5.4 percent to 712.6 compared to 753. That magazine just had a change at the top, where Valerie Salem bier, a chief trouble shooter for ex- Hearst president Cathie Black, was dispatched to try to fix Town & Country. Former Elle publish ing director Carol Smith, who is highly re garded for her run there despite her short six-month stint running Bon Appétit at Condé Nast last year, was handed the job at HB.
“The first half for all magazines in the industry is up factionally, a gain of 1.5 percent in ad pages,” said Steve Cohn, editor in chief of MIN. September is still the bellwether month for most women’s magazines.