Harcourt signed for the 36th and 37th stories. Investment firm Legg Mason signed a lease in August 2006 for the 45th to 50th stories, committing to develop the roof garden and a conference center on the 52nd story. Simultaneously, Forest City also announced its intention to buy ING's stake in the ground-story retail and upper-story office space. By late 2006, there was strong demand for office space in the building, particularly among law firms, and the Times had hired CBRE Group to market the 23rd to 27th stories. Goodwin Procter leased the 23rd through 27th, 29th, and 30th stories in March 2007. The 38th floor was taken that April by Korean architecture firm Samoo Architects & Engineers and developer JP Properties, while Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services took the 34th floor. The first New York Times employees started moving into the building by May 2007. The following month, on June 11, the Times shifted its publishing operations from 43rd Street to its new Eighth Avenue headquarters. Times reporter David W. Dunlap wrote that Piano had described the new building as having "lightness, transparency and immateriality", which intentionally did not fit the traditional image of the "old-fashioned newspaper". The Eighth Avenue building officially opened on November 19, 2007. In total, the structure was projected to cost over $1 billion. In two separate incidents in December 2007 and January 2008, several window panes were cracked by wind gusts. The Japanese company Muji opened a store at the base during May 2008. The four other retail spaces were leased by grocery store Dean & DeLuca, Japanese restaurant Inakaya, Italian restaurant Montenapo by Bice, and a roadside-themed cafe. Also in 2008, the 44th story was occupied by solar energy company First Solar and the Flemish Government. After the tower was scaled several times in mid-2008, workers removed some of the facade's ceramic rods and added glass panels to deter climbing. Piano supported the modifications, but he said that climbing was not even a consideration during the planning process, even though Times executives had focused extensively on reducing the tower's vulnerability to terrorism. By the end of that year, the New York Times Company was facing financial shortfalls and sought to mortgage its building to refinance debt. By January 2009, the Times was negotiating to sell the nineteen stories that it occupied, the 2nd through 21st stories, to W. P. Carey for $225 million. In