(Bloomberg) -- Salesforce.comInc. is stepping up its presence in New York City with a planthat would give it naming rights to a Manhattan skyscraper.

The developer of cloud-based business software said it will takespace at 3 Bryant Park, a 41-story, 1.2 million-square-foot(111,000-square-meter) tower in Midtown. Under the deal, thebuilding would be renamed Salesforce Tower New York, and thecompany’s logo would replace that of MetLife Inc. at thetop of the property after the insurer leaves, said ElizabethPinkham, executive vice president for global real estate at SanFrancisco-based Salesforce.

The company is expanding its operations around the world as itlooks to bolster its reach with new customers. Last month,Salesforce forecast revenue for the current quarter that toppedexpectations amid growing interest in cloud-based software. NewYork is essential to the company’s effort to raise the quality ofits service to clients “from Bank of America to Mattel to AmericanExpress, Accenture, to Western Union, to the Girl Scouts ofAmerica,” Pinkham said.

“Essentially, we’re doubling down on New York,” Pinkham said ina phone interview. “It will definitely be the big hub for thatentire region around New York and the Eastern Seaboard.”

Expansion strategy

Salesforce, founded in 1999, said it plans to add “hundreds” ofjobs in New York as part of a strategy to aggressively expand itspresence in the city. While Pinkham declined to disclose howmuch of the tower’s space the company intends to take, she said thebuilding’s lobby will showcase Salesforce’s products and servicesand be to open to the public.

MetLife said last year it planned to leave 3 Bryant Park as partof a plan to relocate employees from three New York buildings.The largest U.S. life insurer signed a 12-year lease toincrease its space in the MetLife Building at 200 Park Ave., twoblocks to the east.

Salesforce intends to consolidate its New York operations intothe tower overlooking Bryant Park, Pinkham said. The companycurrently has three Manhattan offices — at 685 Third Ave. and140 E. 45th St. on the east side, and at 155 Avenue of the Americasin Soho, an office Salesforce inherited when it acquired BuddyMedia in 2012. In August, Crain’s New York Business reported thatSalesforce was considering taking 200,000 square feet at 3 BryantPark.

Biggest transaction

The tower, historically known as 1095 Avenue of the Americas, was sold early last yearby Blackstone Group LP for $2.2 billion to a joint ventureincluding Ivanhoe Cambridge Inc., the real estate arm of Canadianpension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, and CallahanCapital Properties. It was the largest transaction involving asingle U.S. office building since 2008, and it followed a $300million makeover in which the tower was re-clad in green-tintedglass.

The decision by Salesforce “underscores the best-in-classquality and desirability of 3 Bryant Park as one of the topbusiness addresses in Manhattan” for technology companies as wellas more-traditional tenants, Timothy Callahan, chief executiveofficer of Callahan Capital Properties, said in an e- mailedstatement.

Pinkham said the building will be the center of an East Coastversion of the company’s San Francisco base, where it will occupymore than half of that city’s tallest skyscraper, now underconstruction by a partnership led by Boston Properties Inc.

Related: Blackstone to buy Willis Tower for$1.3B

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