New York City’s Central Business District, which encompasses Midtown and Downtown Manhattan, has been an influential economic and financial capital since the 19th century, mainly thanks to the presence of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and other important financial institutions.

Today, it is the largest central business district in the United States, with a total area of 2.2 square miles. 

Key Facts & Figures about NYC Central Business District

•         The central business district consists of three sub-districts: Midtown, Midtown South, and Downtown, which are further divided into 18 sub-markets.
•         There are approximately 190,000 small businesses, which employ more than 900,000 people. 
•         This area is home to 40 Fortune 500 corporations, the highest concentration in the country.
•         The New York central business district was recently listed as the second best startup ecosystem in the nation and worldwide.
•         The central business district has more than 617,000 residents and nearly 900,000 people commute into the area every day.
•         Local companies attracted nearly $20bn in venture capital funding in 2023.
•         In 2023, NYC attracted more than 62 million visitors per year, with business travelers accounting for 20% of the total.

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As one of the world’s leading business locations, New York City attracts office-based businesses with a wide range of requirements and budgets. In this article, we offer an in-depth analysis of the costs associated with renting office space in the Big Apple, so you can make the best decision when establishing your business footprint in the city.

Understanding the factors that influence office space costs

The cost of leasing office space in New York City‘s office market is influenced by a number of factors, including:

– Location: Although Manhattan still tops the list in terms of prestige, other areas fare better for ease of commute, as is the case of Brooklyn, and their popularity is reflected in rising prices when compared to the rest of the New York office space stock. 

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Notable Office Market Insights

•  Ongoing recovery is the main theme, continuing the trend seen in most office markets throughout 2021.
•  Positive absorption indicators.
•  Slight increase in rental rates.
•  Marked differences in occupancy levels, vacancy rates and general performance from city to city.
•  Remote working practices are still commonplace in key markets, such as San Francisco.
•  142 million square feet of office space currently under construction.

Lease Rates & Asking Rents

Recent data from Commercial Edge outlines a nationwide rental listing rate average of $38sq/ft in January 2022. These figures may be seen as somewhat inflated due to the number of high quality spaces currently listed due to being vacant, with Class A workspaces being listed at much higher prices.

According to Avison Young, Q4 average rental prices per square foot in gateway markets were as follows:

•  Manhattan: $84 sq/ft
•  San Francisco: $80 sq/ft
•  Washington DC: $54 sq/ft
•  Atlanta: $29 sq/ft
•  Boston: $38 sq/ft
•  Chicago CBD: $39 sq/ft

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With a market size of nearly $900bn, the United States has one of the world’s largest commercial real estate markets, coupled with some of the most desirable business locations to match. This post serves as the first part of our examination into the US market’s performance based on data from Q4 2020 and Q1 2021.

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The United States has a long history of being at the forefront of architecture.  In fact, the world’s first modern skyscraper was built in the city of Chicago in 1885. That decade saw impressive buildings built to reach for the sky, mainly in cities that were bustling with trade and business activity.

Many of those buildings still stand tall, along with a wide range of others that have been built over the years. The US cities with the highest density of skyscrapers include:

•   New York, which ranks third in the world due to its skyscraper count, with more than 280 high rises of 150+ meters.
•   Chicago, also in the global top 10, with 126 skyscrapers.
•   Miami, with 54.
•   Houston, with 39.
•   Los Angeles and San Francisco, with 26 and 25, respectively.
•   Boston and Seattle, with 21 each.
•   Las Vegas and Philadelphia, with 14 and 13, respectively.

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The United States office market is characterized by its wide range of properties, ranging from affordable shared spaces to expensive trophy offices in some of the world’s most desirable business locations. In mid-2020, average gross rates for offices nationwide stood at $35 per square foot with the priciest offices located in New York and California. Within these states, the sub-markets commanding the highest rates are:

•   New York: Midtown Manhattan at $87 per square foot, specifically in Chelsea, the Plaza District, and Gramercy Park.
•   California: The Shoreline/Mountain View area, in which prices reach $130 per square foot, followed by Santa Monica and the SoMa district of San Francisco.

Average asking rates in other prime office markets are as follows:

•   Seattle: $70 per square foot, higher in Lake Union and the CBD.
•   Washington DC: $55 per square foot.
•   Cambridge and Boston: $40 and $80 per square foot, respectively.
•   Los Angeles: Averaging $45 per square foot.
•   Chicago: Exceeding $40 per square foot in the West Loop.
•   Raleigh-Durham: $35 per square foot for CBD properties.

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The Empire State Building, situated in vibrant Midtown Manhattan, was inaugurated in 1931 and soon after it became one of the most iconic high rises in the city of New York. The 102-storey art deco style skyscraper is located within walking distance of Herald Square and 33rd Street subway stations and is within easy reach of 16 subway lines.

As well as being a major tourist attraction, the Empire State is a commercial building that accommodates office occupiers mostly involved in banking, technology, and advertising and offers one of the most prestigious business addresses in the city of New York. The building’s antenna is also a broadcast tower that serves the media sector, and there are several radio and television stations that broadcast from their offices in the building. Moreover, the Empire State’s observation deck is one of the most visited tourist landmarks in the city, generating approximately 40 percent of the building’s revenues, and attracting around 4 million visitors a year.

This 102-story building is has been occupied by a diverse mix of highly successful companies over the years, and major tenants have included prestigious businesses like LinkedIn, Bank of America, Shutterstock, Expedia, Media General, BNP Media, Qatar Airways, Unipharm, Bonten Media Group, Walgreens, Noven Pharmaceuticals, and Orion Energy.

Finding Office Space In the Empire State Building

The Empire State Building has a total floor area of more than 2 million square feet and includes a fantastic portfolio of small, mid-size and multi-floor units, pre-built offices and built-to-suit premises occupying full floors. Floor sizes range between 12,900 and 100,000 square feet. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wall Street area is internationally renowned as the world’s financial capital and is an exceptional place to do business. Wall Street itself is a 0.5-mile long artery located between Broadway and South Street, and has a high concentration of highly successful banking and financial headquarters as well as large corporates.

Stock trading activities have been taking place in Wall Street since the 19th century. Today, Wall Street is a hub for firms involved in investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, and asset management. Although finance, banking and insurance are clearly predominant in the area, tourism is also an important industry, since Wall Street and the adjacent alleys are one of the premier tourist destinations within New York City. This area is home to important landmarks, such as the Lincoln Center, the Federal Reserve Building, and the Museum of American Finance.

Some of the most important organizations based in Wall Street are the New York Stock Exchange, Manhattan Chase Bank, Charles Swab, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, BlackRock, Citibank, but there is also a large number of businesses involved in the food services and leisure, which cater to the area’s tourists and daytime population.

Wall Street is known for attracting some of the brightest talent around, and although the recession caused job losses, employment gains have been evident for some time. There are many corporate recruiters based in Wall Street, including Michael Page, Amity Search Partners, Oxbridge, Foster McCay Group, Smith Hanley, SG Partners, and Glocap Search. However, the area is no longer the largest employment hub in the city, since that position now belongs to the Silicon Alley area located in Midtown / Lower Manhattan. Read the rest of this entry »

New York City is home to more than 500 million square feet of office space, which make it one of the world’s largest office markets. While that seems a large amount, space shortages are a reality, and not only in terms of the offices available. Rising rental values mean that many New York companies are choosing to downsize or to make changes to their office layout to maximize space and cut costs. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for companies to move to office premises that are up to 25 percent smaller, yet the amount of people sharing that space remains the same.

Another way in which the amount of office space allocated to each staff member is getting scarcer is because of current trends towards open plan offices and collaborative spaces. The concept of the sharing economy has extended into office design and space allocation, with shared workspaces becoming increasingly more common, which means individual desks are being replaced by large long tables. In fact, New York leads the nation’s provision of shared office space, and even in traditional offices there have been changes in the desk space – meeting or collaborative space ratio, with the balance switching towards the latter.

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An in depth look at how the Manhattan office space market has fared in 2015 and forecasts for this coming year.

Manhattan Office Market Overview of 2015

Over the past 12 months, federal economic policy has been focusing on expansion, driving an increase in employment rates, especially as far as office-based employment is concerned. This type of employment grew by 2.6 per cent in just 1 year, and prompted a considerable increase in demand led by occupiers in the Manhattan financial services sector. In certain Manhattan sub-markets (such as in Midtown South), strong demand from tenants in the TAMI sector (technology, advertising, media, and information) was also evident.

At the end of 2015, total office stock in Manhattan was just under 395 million square feet, of which 28 million were vacant. Total transaction volume amounted to more than 28 million square feet, one of the highest figures of the past 10 years. However, there was a slight decline in transaction volumes in downtown Manhattan, where transactions mostly involved small and medium-sized office properties.

Manhattan Office Market: Key Facts & Figures

During 2015, office vacancy rates in Manhattan went down from 9.3 per cent to 8.5 per cent. This decrease equals to 90 basis points on a year-on-year basis, and brings vacancy rates closer to Manhattan’s historical average of 8.9 per cent. In Midtown South, vacancy rates were markedly lower at 6.2 per cent, whereas in downtown Manhattan they went down by 30 basis points to 9.4 per cent. Read the rest of this entry »