SL Green Maintains Manhattan Leasing Momentum

NYC’s largest office landlord, SL Green Realty is maintaining the healthy leasing velocity it established in January, when it came roaring out of the gate with deals for more than 343K SF of space in the first month of 2023.

The company announced this week that in April and May it signed 31 office leases encompassing 299,137 SF, pushing SL Green’s year-to-date leasing volume to more than 800K SF while maintaining an office leasing pipeline of more than 1M SF.

“Leasing velocity continues to improve” Steven Durels, SL Green’s director of leasing and real property, said in a statement.

“Buildings that are located near public transportation, are well amenitized, that provide healthy work environments and are managed by high-quality, well-capitalized operators are realizing leasing success,” Durels.

The largest leases inked in the second quarter thus far by SL Green include a combination renewal and expansion at 280 Park Avenue by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds.

The fund renewed its 49,851K SF lease, which encompasses the entire ninth floor of the building and expanded to take the entire tenth floor, which is roughly the same amount of space. The tenant was represented by CBRE in the 15-year lease transaction.

Swedish private equity firm EQT Partners signed a new 15-year lease encompassing 76K SF at 245 Park Avenue—the entire 33^rd and 34^th floors of the building. EQT was represented by Newmark in the transaction.

Angelo Gordon signed a 10,636 SF expansion lease at 245 Park Avenue, increasing its footprint in the building to 149,305 SF. An expansion lease also was inked with Stone Point Capital for 12,692 SF at One Vanderbilt, increasing the private equity firm’s office footprint in the building to about 29K SF.

Manhattan’s office leasing volume totaled 1.75M SF in May, an increase of 16.9% over the 1.5M SF of activity in April, according to Colliers’ monthly market snapshot for May.

Despite the solid jump in activity last month, leasing activity in Manhattan in May was nearly 30% lower than the total in May 2022. The average month leasing volume in Manhattan in 2022 was 2.4M SF; in 2021, the monthly average was 2.08M SF.

The office availability rate in Manhattan remained at a record-high level of 17.4%. The availability rate in Downtown hit 20.8% in May, with Midtown and Midtown South holding steady at 15.5% and 17.8%, respectively. The available supply in Manhattan is almost 94M SF.

The largest lease transaction in Manhattan in May signed by Paul Hastings for a 257K SF extension and expansion at 200 Park Avenue. GIC’s expansion at 280 Park Avenue was the second largest lease deal last month.

In January, SL Green’s largest deals involved flagship tenants at 555 West 57^th Street: CBS Broadcasting signed a five-year renewal covering 187K SF at 555 West 57^th Street and Greater New York Hospital Association signed a 10-year renewal covering 58K SF.