Manhattan’s office leasing market remains on the up and up.
Coming off the strongest first quarter since 2019, tenants inked deals for 3.38 million square feet in April, up 23 percent year over year, according to a new Colliers report. Although leasing volume was down from March, the availability rate continued to tighten, dropping from 17.7 percent to 15.7 percent, the lowest since February 2021.
If demand stays at the current level, leasing volume is on track to reach 44.3 million square feet, the most since 2000 — when Bill Clinton was president.
“The healthy demand and tightening supply that we’ve seen over the last several quarters need to continue in order for the market to finally reach recovery,” said Colliers’ Franklin Wallach, one of the report’s authors. “It’s absolutely marching in that direction, but the pressure is on for it to continue.”
Economic uncertainty due to Trump’s tariff policies could still derail the comeback. But looming macroeconomic factors did not deter new deals last month. The five largest leases were new, as opposed to expansions or renewals. Tenants jumped between buildings and neighborhoods.
The largest was Amazon’s 330,000-square-foot lease at Property & Building Corp’s 10 Bryant Park. The e-commerce behemoth signed a 15-year lease to take over floors 3 through 11 of the tower’s main building, replacing space vacated by former anchor tenant HSBC.
Goodwin Procter inked the second-largest lease at BXP’s 200 Fifth Avenue. The law firm inked a 250,000-square-foot, 20-year lease at the Flatiron District building. Apollo Global Management’s 100,000-square-foot lease at 590 Madison Avenue in Midtown, owned by the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, was the third-largest lease.
Accounting and consulting firm Deloitte’s massive 800,000-square-foot lease at 70 Hudson Yards was not included in the report because Colliers could not confirm it.
Availability tightened in prime markets Midtown and Midtown South, and remained stable Downtown. Sublet availability also dropped for the seventh consecutive month. Average asking rent, meanwhile, was basically stable year over year at $74.37 per square foot, but still 6.4 percent lower than March 2020.
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