NEW YORK CITY-"Everybody wakes up everyday and wants to be connected to something larger than themselves." So says Joseph Harbert, the new president of the eastern region for Colliers International. After his widely-reported departure from Cushman & Wakefield, he talked with GlobeSt.com about the Manhattan office market, new leasing opportunities and his next steps amid a changing brokerage landscape.

GlobeSt.com: We are seeing more renewals than moves in the NYC office market. Why is that occurring, in your opinion?

Harbert: There are a significant amount of renewals. Last year if you look at the stats, there’s about almost 30 million square feet of leasing, and there’s about eight million square feet of renewals on top of it. It was a significant component of the market even last year. Obviously you have some signature deals this year so far, like the Viacom deal, for example, which was a huge deal. But there’s a couple reasons for renewals being in the forefront. One of them is people don’t like to move, generally speaking. If could sit tight where you are, it’s generally a lot easier. On the other hand, you also have the desire for some people to reduce their footprint, get more efficient and to right-size their office space – those dynamics go together. Number two, the landlords in New York are very sophisticated and they like holding onto their tenants. If the tenants can pay the freight, landlords are always willing to deal with their existing tenants, provided that they are good tenants, obviously. Landlords are being very aggressive in trying to hold onto their tenants. The third thing is for most companies, capital is something that is expended very carefully. It is expensive to move. If you move into a pre-built, that’s fine, but you move into a new space and you have to construct your space, you’ve got $200 a foot that you’ve got to spend in capital. Some firms are willing to do that because they are unhappy with their current space and they can’t cut a deal where they are, but in a lot of senses, those are the people that want new space and change their culture. They want to get down to the right size for offices, the right size for cubes and create a culture and environment for their people. If you look at last year’s 38 million feet, if you do the math, renewals were a fifth of the market. This year, it seems like with the large deal we just had, renewals are probably a significant component of that.