It is anyone’s guess what will happen to office rents here in New York City, but we at Longstreet are here for those who wish to find space, and we are pretty close to being certain that this is a renter’s market. The Manhattan “office availability rate,” or vacancy rate, in July of 2023 hit a record high of 19.7% (CO 7/11/23). Not good. Most of the rents below are pre- COVID, and they will be updated when such is possible….
"Prime A" New York City ranks eleventh in the world in terms of office space costs, behind London (2 districts), Hong Kong (2 D) , Beijing (2D), Moscow, New Delhi, Tokyo and Shanghai.
Average asking rents continue to increase, oddly, to $78.00 per square foot (CO 7/11/23).
Midtown South vacancy rate 18.2% (CO 12/7/21)
Midtown Manhattan "A" vacancy rate: 16.9% (CO 12/7/21)
Midtown East / South Manhattan overall vacancy rate: 9.6% (CO 6/28/17) (78.6 million square feet in total)
Lowest vacancy rates: Chelsea at 2%, and SoHo and the Village under 1%...
Midtown "A" space asking average: $96.00 per square foot (!) CO (7/11/23)
B and C asking average $59.00 CO (7/11/23)/
Midtown South asking average: $78.37 (CO 12/7/21)
Chelsea: $63.56 (CO 3/22/17)
Meatpacking: $115.79 !!! (REW 1/20/16)
Times Square Submarket: $85.33 (6/18/13 TCO) (This seems high to me)
Downtown asking average: $49.92 (CO 3/26/19)
Concessions such as tenant improvement allowances for class A tenants increased in 2019 by 7.5% to $105.21 a square foot….with 12 months of free rent. (REW 7/10/19).
The top asking rents in post COVID 2021 appear to be at One Vanderbilt, on the top floors, which are from $300.00 on 68 up to $322.00 on 73. Ken Griffon paid $300.00 a square foot for his space at 425 Park Avenue, albeit in 2019.
We deal directly with building owners and with the brokers that represent them. Brokers that we have recently worked with include Cushman & Wakefield, Savills Studley, CBRE, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, Fisher Brothers, Jack Resnick & Sons, The Durst Organization, Rudin Management...and literally hundreds of others.
Nearly every space that is available in New York is listed on Co-Star, which is a proprietary service that we subscribe to...and if a space is not listed there, chances are that we know about it through personal contacts and through hitting the streets.