NYC Office Leasing Gains Momentum With Several Major Deals

New York City office leasing has continued to gain momentum through the end of the year. Seven lease transactions totaling 240,000 square feet in Midtown Manhattan illustrates the activity in the market.

Office owner LeFrak completed five lease transactions totaling 100,000 square feet at 40 West 57th Street in New York City’s Plaza District. In the largest transaction, Givaudan signed a 50,000-square-foot renewal for the 10th and 11th floors of the building. The lease has a 15-year term. In the remaining transactions, A&E Real Estate signed a 10-year deal for 17,525 square feet, Lightyear Capital took 13,500 square feet in a10-year lease and Darsana Capital signed a 11,500 square-foot lease deal.

CBRE’s Howard Fiddle, Gregg Rothkin, Benjamin Joseph, Evan Fiddle and Arkady Smolyansky negotiated the lease transactions.

At 1166 Avenue of the Americas, a property owned by Edward J. Minskoff Equities Inc., William Blair completed a lease extension and expansion totaling 80,000 square feet, nearly doubling its current footprint at the property. It will occupy the 20th floor and a portion of the 19th floor. Additionally, Ryan Specialty Group signed a lease for 40,000 square feet. The company is relocating from 1345 Avenue of the Americas.

JLL team of Paul N Glickman, vice chairman; Jonathan Fanuzzi, managing director; Cynthia Wasserberger, vice chairman; and Diana Biasotti, senior vice president; Jeffrey Sussman, executive vice president, represented the building ownership. CBRE’s Silvio Petriello and Ben Friedland, vice chairmen; Ramneek Rikhy, SVP; Joseph Fabrizi, EVP, and Cara Chayet, first VP, represented William Blair, while Savills’ Gabe Marans, executive managing director; Robert Sevim, vice chairman, and Adam Southard, managing director, represented Ryan Specialty Group.

This leasing activity builds on a strong third quarter, when office leasing registered its strongest performance since the onset of the pandemic, according to CBRE’s Q3 2021 Manhattan market report. Third-quarter Manhattan leasing totaled 5.88 million sq. ft., up 70% from Q2 2021. However, the Q3 total was still 5% below the five-year quarterly average of 6.16 million square feet. For the year-to-date, Manhattan leasing has outpaced the same period in 2020 by 13%.