Office leases by industry
From the May issue: Even with only seven leases last month, the advertising and marketing industry beat every other sector in terms of total feet of office space leased, according to The Real Deal’s Deal Sheet in its current issue. In fact, advertising and marketing cemented their ascendance, leasing triple the square footage that New York City’s lifeblood — the financial services industry — leased in the same period. Click here to see the full Deal Sheet summary.
From the May issue: Two big office deals — each for more than 1 million square feet — provided a statistical lift that ended an extremely slow three-month leasing stretch in Manhattan. Indeed, last month saw 4.9 million square feet of Manhattan office space leased, compared to 6.1 million square feet for all of January, February and March combined.
Contributing to the uptick was media giant Viacom, which signed a 15-year renewal and lease expansion last month that runs through 2031. The move will ultimately give the company the entire 1.6 million-square-foot office portion of SL Green Realty’s 1515 Broadway. [more]
From left: 1 New York Plaza and 1515 Broadway
While two large recent deals may signal Manhattan’s office leasing market is finally thawing, the New York Post said industry insiders remain concerned because neither represented a relocation. In both Viacom’s agreement for 1.6 million square feet at 1515 Broadway and Morgan Stanley’s deal for 1.1 million square feet at One New York Plaza, the tenants were never close to making commitments to — and thereby solidifying — one of the city’s new towers, such as the World Trade Center buildings, 11 Times Square, 250 West 55th Street, and the office portion of the International Gem Tower. [more]
Office leasing by industry
From the April issue: Fashion tenants leased nearly as much space as financial tenants, according to The Real Deal’s Deal Sheet in its current issue. The 18 leases signed for fashion deals totaled 57,791 square feet between Feb. 11 and March 10 of this year, whereas the eight financial deals totaled 60,367 square feet in the same period. Click here to see the full Deal Sheet summary.
Jason Schwartzenberg, a corporate managing director at Studley
Finding tech office clients is a wise move for commercial brokers in a climate where traditional financial sector tenants are losing ground, Real Estate Weekly reported.
According to statistics from commercial brokerage Cassidy Turley, tech companies were responsible for 28 percent of Manhattan office leasing last year, a jump from just 18 percent last year. [more]
Graph provided by Alliance for Downtown New York
Commercial office leasing in Lower Manhattan totaled 5.86 million square feet in 2011, an 80 percent increase over 2010, according to a report by the Alliance for Downtown New York.
Thirteen of the top 20 leases for the year were for over 100,000 square feet, the Alliance said, while total office vacancy for the area ended the year at 9.5 percent, down from 9.9 percent in the second quarter of 2011 and 11.5 percent in the last quarter of 2010. Meanwhile, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield, Lower Manhattan also maintained its ranking as the business district with the third-lowest vacancy rate in the nation. [more]
From left: renderings of 250 West 55th Street, Manhattan West and 51 Astor Place
The city’s low office vacancy rates and slowly rising rents are overshadowing a disturbing office leasing trend, according to the New York Post. Ground-up office projects have been unable to secure major tenants, which in turn has stifled development.
Yesterday’s news that Silverstein Properties might cap off 3 World Trade Center at seven stories because of its inability to land a tenant, is just the most recent example. [more]
New York City trails only Dallas/Forth Worth and Washington, D.C. in its recovery rate for office-using employment, according to a Studley office and space data report released yesterday. The city has a 49.9 percent recovery rate compared to Dallas/Fort Worth’s 67.9 percent and Washington, D.C.’s 60.5 percent, the report states. The 49.9 percent rate indicates that the city has regained its position as one of the top performing economies in the U.S over the last several quarters, the report notes. But nevertheless, optimism is waning due to the uncertainty hanging over the economy in the wake of the continued decline in home prices, slower economic growth and weak employment numbers. – Miranda Neubauer [more]
From the May issue: Cushman & Wakefield led the way in tenant representation for office leases from mid-March through mid-April, inking 453,361 square feet of New York office space. It’s the third consecutive month in which Cushman & Wakefield landed among the top two firms in office space leased in The Real Deal’s Deal Sheet summary. Most of Cushman’s leased square footage came from the 300,000 square feet Lazard took in a 21-year expansion and renewal at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Eastdil Secured placed second over the four-week span, thanks to the 275,000 square feet it leased for Wells Fargo at 150 East 42nd Street. Click here to see the complete Deal Sheet summary. TRD [more]
SL Green Realty, the largest commercial landlord in Manhattan, is poised to enact portfolio-wide rent hikes, according to Crain’s, as leasing activity in office space begins to gradually stabilize. Steven Durels, director of leasing and property at SL Green, said that it’s too early to tell precisely how much the rates could climb for his company’s 30-building portfolio, which encompasses around 22 million square feet. If the across-the-board rent hikes are enforced, Durels said they would take place in the next two months. Additionally, SL Green plans to reduce the number of tenant incentives it handed out during the recession. “In spaces where there had been no activity [in the past several months], we are now in active lease negotiations,” Durels said. “It feels pretty good.” [Crain's]
