BK’s emerging office market 6th largest in country: CBRE

Dumbo leads borough with average asking rent of $64 psf

DUMBO Heights Brooklyn
Kushner Companies and RFR Realty will include 963,000 square feet of office space at the Dumbo Heights complex.

Manhattan may receive all the glory, but Brooklyn is an office powerhouse in its own right. As a stand-alone office market, the Brooklyn Waterfront ranks sixth in the country — and it’s growing.

From Williamsburg and Greenpoint to Sunset Park in South Brooklyn, Kings County has 48 million square feet of office space, according to CBRE’s inaugural quarterly report on the borough released Thursday.

For its analysis, the brokerage tracked buildings with office or light-manufacturing use with at least 35,000 square feet of rentable space, a sample that included 190 properties.

Brooklyn’s inventory falls behind that of Atlanta and San Francisco, which each have 48 million square feet, and Houston’s stock of 45 million.

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Manhattan, by way of local comparison, has 398 million square feet, with Downtown and Midtown South accounting for 88 million square feet and 74 million square feet, respectively.

“You’ve got a 45 million square foot submarket which rivals some of the strongest markets in our country,” CBRE’s Sacha Zarba said at the brokerage’s third quarter media luncheon hosted at the Dumbo Heights campus. “So when you look at that and you look at the demographic shift, you look at the planned new developments and construction… you’re going to continue to see not only continued organic growth, but I think you’ll see a lot more firms from various stages – growth to mature – consider the market.”

According to CBRE’s measurements, the borough has another 5 million of office or light manufacturing under construction or renovation that’s set to hit the market through 2018, and another 3.6 million square feet planned or proposed.

The Dumbo submarket led the borough in terms of average asking rents in the third quarter with $64.47 per square foot. On the other end of the spectrum, South Brooklyn averaged $19.55 per square foot.