Manhattan workplace leasing is red-hot. However is it $400 a foot scorching?
Stefan Soloviev is advertising and marketing an workplace area at 9 West 57th Road that, if achieved, would shatter the $327 record rent his constructing achieved earlier this yr.
His Soloviev Group is eyeing $400 per sq. foot for the 11,155-square-foot area on the fiftieth Ground, one in every of two remaining areas within the 1.5 million-square-foot tower.
“Filling 9W is one thing that has by no means been performed earlier than and has at all times been a average aim of mine as a result of I put plenty of time into this constructing all through my life,” Soloviev advised The Actual Deal. “My father assembled 17 parcels and wager the whole lot he needed to construct this wonderful constructing and although our enterprise types clashed — as did we — it’s considerably satisfying that by means of all of it we collectively made 9 West 57th Road the perfect constructing on this planet.”
Soloviev’s father, Sheldon Solow, developed his iconic workplace tower in 1974, and famously saved parts of the constructing empty as a result of he was so selective in regards to the sorts of tenants he allowed on the unique tackle.
Soloviev — who clashed along with his father and spent a lot of his profession constructing a farm-and-agriculture empire throughout the U.S. heartland — took over the tower when his father died in 2020 on the age of 92. He’s spent the final a number of years modernizing the crown jewel within the household portfolio, which was starting to indicate indicators of its age and slip behind newer towers. To assist entice new tenants, the corporate is debuting a brand new 20,000-square-foot amenity flooring with Central Park views, government eating and a hospitality space.
Over the previous few months 9 West has inked a pair of leases within the $300 vary — a determine that till just lately was uncharted territory.
In April, Soloviev introduced he had signed a 5,000-square-foot lease on the northwest nook of the fiftieth flooring at $327.50 per sq. foot, topping the earlier high-water mark at SL Inexperienced’s One Vanderbilt, which in 2022 signed a 9,871 square-foot deal on its highest workplace flooring with the Canadian waste administration firm GFL Environmental.
The corporate just lately signed one other large deal: Webster, the household workplace for the founding father of the agricultural buying and selling commodities firm SFI, took 5,000 sq. ft on the fiftieth flooring averaging $315 per sq. foot.
Rents above $300 a foot are nonetheless extraordinarily uncommon a decade after L&L Holdings first broke that mark in 2015 when Ken Griffin’s Citadel paid that value for the penthouse portion of its 200,000-square-foot area at 425 Park Avenue. However they’re changing into extra frequent.
Manhattan recorded one such lease final yr when SL Inexperienced signed the infrastructure service supplier Kyndryl to a $305 per sq. foot deal for six,300 sq. ft at One Vanderbilt.
However the market might be headed extra towards that path. Offers for earlier value limitations that have been as soon as regarded as distinctive — comparable to $100 and $200 a foot — at the moment are rather more commonplace.
New York noticed a document 313 leases beginning at $100 per sq. foot or extra in 2025, up from 2024’s document of 212 leases, in response to JLL’s annual report of top-of-market offers. There have been 28 offers at $200 per sq. foot or increased, together with six offers above $250.
Soloviev stated he’s just lately signed 5 offers at 9 West 57th Road within the $200 vary. They embrace offers with the non-public fairness agency Infinedi Companions, Pittsburg-based PE store Continuim LLC, Halle Capital Administration (coming from throughout the road on the LeFrak’s 40 West 57th Road), Redding Ridge Asset Administration (an affiliate of Apollo International Administration, which is headquartered at 9 West) and an undisclosed tenant.
Catch Hospitality Group additionally just lately signed a lease to take over the previous Cucina 8 ½ restaurant area.
Manhattan workplace leasing has totaled 12.78 million sq. ft this yr up to now by means of Could, in response to CBRE. That’s according to figures from final yr, which ended simply shy of the last decade peak of 32.4 million in 2018. The typical asking lease is up almost 6 % yr over yr at $86.55 per sq. foot.
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