The 10 Manhattan Office Buildings With The Biggest Blocks Of Space To Rent
New York City’s office market is climbing its way back from its pandemic abyss, but landlords across the city have mountains of empty space they must figure out how to navigate.
Leasing fell by more than 50% between 2019 and 2020, and while Manhattan's office market had its best quarter since the coronavirus pandemic began over the summer, the activity spike has thus far yet to make a dent in the borough's elevated vacancy.
Manhattan office availability is now sitting at 18.4%, well above the market’s five-year average of 10.8% before the crisis. There were 39 blocks of office space 250K SF or larger available to lease at the end of September, which combined account for nearly 16.5M SF of availability in the market, according to Colliers data provided to Bisnow.
That doesn’t account for large blocks of space that are coming down the pike: When Deutsche Bank leaves 60 Wall St. and 2 Manhattan West reaches completion, another 3M SF will be added to the city's supply, according to Savills data.
“This is the result of two things: the borderless market, because over 10 years we've had millions of square feet of tenants relocating,” said Franklin Wallach, senior managing director of research at Colliers. “That's mixed with, essentially, the greatest amount of office construction that we've seen since the 1980s, especially in Hudson Yards and Manhattan West. There's about 25M SF of office construction slash major renovations that will be completed between 2022 and 2024.”
To dig deeper into the state of the office market, Bisnow wanted to get a sense of where the largest blocks of space are being offered right now. The 10 buildings below have the largest blocks of contiguous space being actively marketed and ready for tenant possession within the next 12 months, according to Colliers. These spaces are as of Sept. 30, 2021.
66 Hudson Blvd.
Owner: Tishman Speyer
Large block availability: 1.14M SF
Total building availability: 1.44M SF
Dubbed the Spiral, Tishman Speyer’s Bjarke Ingels-designed, 1,005-foot-tall office tower topped out earlier this year, but still has plenty of space to fill. The 2.85M SF build has signed blockbuster deals in the past few years with Pfizer, which leased 800K SF there in a 20-year deal; Debevoise & Plimpton, which plans to move its headquarters to 530K SF in the building; and AllianceBernstein, which leased 189K SF across floors 25 through 28. That leaves nearly 1.5M SF available, over 1.1M SF of which is made up of blocks 250K SF or larger. Tishman Speyer held a topping-off ceremony at The Spiral in January and anticipates completing construction of the striking development next year.
111 Wall St.
Owners: Nightingale Properties and Wafra Capital Partners
Large block availability: 1.04M SF
Total building availability: 1.04M SF
Nightingale Properties and Wafra Capital Partners picked up this Financial District building for $175M last year, then bought the land beneath it for $220M in June. The entire building, which spans a total of 1.2M SF, is empty, so the owners are spending $100M to revamp the property. Nightingale and Wafra scored $500M in construction and debt financing in June, and that same month locked down the city’s first C-PACE loan, $89M in low-cost debt to fund upgrades to the 55-year-old tower’s energy systems.
5 Times Square
Owner: RXR Realty
Large block availability: 990K SF
Total building availability: 990K SF
Ernst & Young opened its new U.S. headquarters at Brookfield’s 1 Manhattan West in July, having officially announced it was leaving RXR’s Times Square tower back in 2017. At the time, EY said the move to that part of the city was to appeal to millennial workers.
EY moved into the 1.1M SF 5 Times Square back in 2002, when it was owned by Boston Properties. The new owners, RXR and investor David Werner, are spending $50M to revamp the property, which now has 990K SF to fill. The space is being marketed at $80 to $100 per SF, the New York Post reported, and the work being done includes replacing exterior signage, lobby upgrades, a new tenant amenity center and an elevator connection between the building and the subway station.
80 Pine St.
Owner: Rudin Management
Large block availability: 870K SF
Total building availability: 950K SF
Law firm Cahill is decamping 80 Pine St. after 60 years for 32 Old Slip, leaving the Rudin family with a large chunk of this Financial District building to fill. The property first opened in 1960 and spans 1.2M SF and an entire block, per the New York Post. The Rudin family developed the property and is now renovating it, launching a new leasing campaign to fill the vast majority of its office space that sits available. The building will get new storefronts and a new lobby, and rents are set to be in the mid-$50s per SF, the Post reported.
3 Times Square
Owner: Rudin Management
Large block availability: 780K SF
Total building availability: 780K SF
80 Pine isn’t the only office property Rudin is looking to refresh in order to fill impending large vacancies. With tenants like Bank of Montreal and FTI Consulting heading out the door, Rudin is spending $25M to revamp the 885K SF building with the help of FXCollaborative. The property is owned in a joint venture with Thomson Reuters, and the revamp will include a “glass-walled, triple height” new lobby, facade screen and destination dispatch elevator, as well as a new gym, a 220-person event center and a dining area. Asking rents will be the low-$70s to mid-$80s per SF once the renovation is complete, a spokesperson told Bisnow in April.
550 Madison Ave.
Owner: Olayan America
Large block availability: 750K SF
Total building availability: 800K SF
The 800K SF property at 550 Madison Ave. has been through a $300M repositioning, but is still mainly empty, though talks of a major lease emerged over the summer. A partnership led by Joseph Chetrit sold the former Sony Building to Olayan for $1.4B back in 2016. Perella Weinberg was said to be looking at the property back in 2019, though that never came to fruition. In August, the New York Post reported that Chubb Group was seriously considering taking 250K SF across 10 floors in the building. No deals have hit the press yet, however, with more than 800K SF vacant.
175 Water St.
Owner: Metroloft Management
Large block availability: 680K SF
Total building availability: 680K SF
Nathan Berman’s Metroloft Management picked up the former American International Group headquarters at 175 Water St. in 2019 for $270M, and it undertook a massive reimagining of the 684K SF property with the help of Gensler. AIG announced it would move its global headquarters to 1271 Sixth Ave. near Rockefeller Center back in 2020, and its lease expires at the 175 Water St. location this year.
295 Fifth Ave.
Owners: Tribeca Investment Group, PGIM Real Estate and Meadow Partners
Large block availability: 670K SF
Total building availability: 670K SF
Built in 1920, 295 Fifth Ave. originally housed textile tenants. The owners of the historic 17-story, 700K SF property have spent some $300M on upgrades. Tribeca Investment Group, PGIM Real Estate and Meadow Partners closed on a 99-year ground lease for the building in 2019 for $375M.
330 West 42nd St.
Owner: Deco Tower Associates
Large block availability: 660K SF
Total building availability: 660K SF
Deco Tower Associates has just revealed its $120M revamp at the former McGraw Hill building, where it brought in Newmark to market the property to tenants. Built in 1931, the property has been a National Historic Landmark since 1989, and was once home to the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. and Marvel Comics. An 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East subsidiary left its 520K SF office at the property last year when its lease expired and its parent organization consolidated operations at George Comfort & Sons’ 498 Seventh Ave. The renovation at the 662K SF property has brought new lounges, a redone lobby and nine outdoor terraces, Real Estate Weekly reported.
341 Ninth Ave.
Owner: Tishman Speyer
Large block availability: 630K SF
Total building availability: 630K SF
Tishman Speyer isn’t just seeking tenants on Manhattan's West Side at The Spiral — it is also on the hunt for tenants at its planned tech hub redevelopment of the Morgan North Post Office on Ninth Avenue. In 2019, the company announced it had reached a 99-year lease deal with the U.S. Postal Service to redevelop the upper floors of the facility in West Chelsea into 630K SF of offices. Tokyo-based international advertising and public relations firm Dentsu Aegis Network signed on for 320K SF that same year, but there is some 600K to fill there, per Colliers. The space available is a combination of direct space and space that Dentsu has put on the sublease market, per Colliers.
