WeWork is continuing its rapid expansion in Boston. Now it’s nearly taking over entire buildings.
The co-working giant has signed a lease for all the office space at One Milk Street, which consists of two newly rehabbed historic properties in Downtown Crossing: The Franklin Building, also known as the Post Building, and the Transcript Building. The Franklin sits on the site of Ben Franklin’s birth in 1706.
WeWork’s 29,000-square-foot space will give it room for about 440 desks, which it rents by the month to freelancers, small companies and, increasingly, larger firms that want more flexibility than a traditional long-term office lease allows. A spokeswoman said WeWork plans to open the offices next spring.
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The deal will give the co-working firm 12 locations in Boston and Cambridge, with a total of more than 1 million square feet of space. That makes WeWork one of the largest office tenants in the region, while also making it one of Boston’s larger landlords.
The now-joined buildings at One Milk once housed the Boston Evening Transcript and the Boston Post on what was for many years known as Newspaper Row, a section of Washington Street.
One Milk is owned by New York-based Midwood Investment and Development, which paid $18.2 million for it in 2015. Shake Shack has signed a lease for space on the ground floor, according to documents filed in Suffolk County, and Gre.Co, a fast-casual Greek restaurant, has announced it’s also taking street-level space.
Tim Logan can be reached at tim.logan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bytimlogan.