The Durst Organization and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey have decided to chop asking rents for office space at One World Trade Center by almost 10 percent. Big tenants seeking space on the middle floors in the building would pay an average $69 per square foot, a drop from $75 per square foot.
The 1,776-foot property is slated to open by the end of this year, but is merely 55 percent leased. Media company Condé Nast, which signed a lease for 1 million square feet in 2011, is the sole major private tenant.
“The market’s not there,” Durst told the Wall Street Journal. “When we started in 2011, everybody expected the economy to take off, and obviously that hasn’t happened.”
Durst said it has been a struggle to compete with other major office towers Downtown, many of which are asking in the $50 per square foot for space. Downtown rents at Class A buildings were nearly $54 per square foot on average in the first quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield data cited by the Journal. [WSJ] — Mark Maurer