Hillary Clinton said to be setting up headquarters in Brooklyn (Newsweek)

Hillary Clinton’s Team Sets Up Shop in Brooklyn (Wall Street Journal)

April 3, 2015

Yet she has a campaign staff, fundraisers eager to raise millions of dollars on her behalf and now, it seems, a campaign headquarters.

Mrs. Clinton’s team has signed a lease for office space in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y., a person familiar with the matter said Friday.

Her advisers believe the location is a symbolic one – far removed from the Washington beltway crowd, if not exactly plunk in the middle of the heartland.

When she ran for president in 2008, Mrs. Clinton’s headquarters was just outside D.C. in Northern Virginia. That race didn’t go so well. Mrs. Clinton, once the prohibitive front-runner in 2008, wound up losing to then-freshman Sen. Barack Obama. Clearly, Mrs. Clinton wants to make some changes this time around – and new digs are a start.

So, all that’s left for Mrs. Clinton to do is declare she’s actually running. That announcement is expected in mid-April.

The Clinton campaign headquarters will be at One Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn Heights, the person familiar with the matter said.

Hillary Clinton Signs Lease at Brooklyn Heights Building; Could it be Campaign HQ (CBS New York)

There was no official word on what the offices in the One Pierrepont Plaza building will be used for, but some speculated that it could house her presidential campaign headquarters.

“Brooklyn could not be more prepared and excited to host Hillary Clinton as she begins her journey as the consensus front-runner for the Democratic nomination for President,” Carlo A. Scissura, president and chief executive officer of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce said in a news release. “As one of the most diverse and tolerant places on the planet — and with cool points no other city can match — the road to the White House is clearly paved through our borough. Brooklyn is the capital of tomorrow, and there’s no better place for tomorrow’s aspiring President to run a campaign.”

After engaging in campaign activities like signing a lease, presidential candidates must make their intentions known within 15 days.

Late last month, a poll indicated that Clinton still holds a commanding lead over the potential Democratic field in the 2016 presidential race.

A whopping 81 percent of Democrats said they would consider voting for Clinton for the party’s nomination.

Vice President Joe Biden ranked second with 48 percent, while Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was in third place with 31 percent.

Hillary Clinton inks deal for Brooklyn Heights offices (Bloomberg)

Her campaign-in-waiting has committed to nearly 80,000 square feet at 1 Pierrepont Plaza on the western edge of Brooklyn Heights, half a mile south of the Brooklyn Bridge and near a dozen subway lines and just as many buses.

The building's marketing materials describe it as offering "Modern offices. Brooklyn cool."

The decision to situate Ms. Clinton's campaign headquarters in the borough had been final for weeks, as was the selection of the building. But Ms. Clinton's team held off on inking the deal, since it gives her 15 days under Federal Election Commission rules to launch either an exploratory committee or a full- fledged candidate committee. The source wouldn't say exactly when the lease was signed or when staffers would start moving in.

The campaign has signed a lease for two floors of office space, averaging around 38,500 square feet. Her team will take possession of the space without doing any construction. Politico first reported on the signing.

Once staffers move in, it will unify what's been a scattered operation. Some people have been working out of Ms. Clinton's small office in midtown Manhattan, while others have set up shop in their apartments, or in coffee shops or hotel lobbies.

A spokesman for Ms. Clinton did not respond to a request for comment.