Manhattan workplace leasing is red-hot. However is it $400 a foot sizzling?
Stefan Soloviev is advertising 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 among two remaining areas within the 1.5 million-square-foot tower.
“Filling 9W is one thing that has by no means been accomplished earlier than and has all the time been a average aim of mine as a result of I put plenty of time into this constructing all through my life,” Soloviev informed The Actual Deal. “My father assembled 17 parcels and wager every thing he needed to construct this superb constructing and although our enterprise types clashed — as did we — it’s considerably satisfying that via all of it we collectively made 9 West 57th Road the most effective 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 concerning the sorts of tenants he allowed on the unique deal with.
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, govt 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 massive deal: Webster, the household workplace for the founding father of the agricultural buying and selling commodities firm SFI, took 5,000 sq. toes 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 worth for the penthouse portion of its 200,000-square-foot area at 425 Park Avenue. However they’re turning into extra widespread.
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. toes at One Vanderbilt.
However the market might be headed extra towards that course. Offers for earlier worth obstacles that had been as soon as considered distinctive — akin to $100 and $200 a foot — at the moment are rather more commonplace.
New York noticed a report 313 leases beginning at $100 per sq. foot or extra in 2025, up from 2024’s report 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 greater, together with six offers above $250.
Soloviev mentioned he’s just lately signed 5 offers at 9 West 57th Road within the $200 vary. They embody 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 World 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. toes this yr to date via 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 practically 6 % yr over yr at $86.55 per sq. foot.
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