(Bloomberg) — Some 1,100 toes within the air, virtually as excessive as you may go anyplace in New York Metropolis, One World Commerce Middle is leasing workplace area for the primary time — a putting milestone in Decrease Manhattan’s lengthy restoration.
Ten years after the skyscraper opened, the 89th and ninetieth flooring are actually accessible to the very best bidder looking for sq. footage in New York’s more and more crowded business actual property market.
The brand new tenants will sit atop the sprawling group of skyscrapers that make up the rebuilt World Commerce Middle complicated, overlooking the 2 huge Sept. 11 memorial swimming pools that mark the place the unique twin towers stood.
However even right here, enterprise calculations prevail. The large one: How a lot is somebody keen to pay to maneuver into what’s being billed as the very best workplace for lease within the Western Hemisphere?
The family-owned Durst Group, one of many builders, is aiming to command rents as excessive as $160 per sq. foot — a sum past something seen in Downtown Manhattan and nearer to the costs related to prime workplace area in Midtown, the place lots of the metropolis’s finance corporations migrated over the previous decade. With the brand new providing, the Durst Group says it could nicely lure a minimum of one among them again.
“It’s actually prone to be one thing in finance,” stated Eric Engelhardt, who heads leasing of the penthouse flooring for the Durst Group. “Perhaps it’s a enterprise capital that invests in these know-how firms that now we have everywhere in the constructing.”
A 75-second experience up two elevators, the gods-eye view stretches out from the 46,000 sq. toes of obtainable area, with a 360-degree panorama of the town and past. Above helicopter view, at eye stage with looming thunderstorms, the bridges remind viewers they’re on an island, the Statue of Liberty is thumb-sized, and the Atlantic Ocean spans the horizon.
Current tenants of the three.1 million sq. foot constructing — constructed by the Durst Group and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and presently 95% occupied — embrace Advance Journal Publishers Inc.’s Condé Nast, tech entrepreneurs Wunderkind Corp. and funding agency Power Capital Companions.
It’s a pointy distinction to the towers’ former make-up, which included ground after ground of insurance coverage corporations, brokerages and banking giants similar to Morgan Stanley. Their new houses may be noticed a number of miles away from the highest of One World Commerce Middle — nearer to Grand Central Terminal and the glistening new towers of Hudson Yards.
Since they left, the Monetary District has undergone a makeover, including glass towers the place stone as soon as dominated and changing silent buying and selling flooring with luxurious condos. The neighborhood is dotted with high-end malls, from the huge Brookfield Place to the distinctive Oculus construction, additionally a large transit hub that hyperlinks what’s now dubbed FiDi with New Jersey.
And whereas vacant workplace area in New York stays above pre-pandemic ranges, demand for prime areas has surged in latest months as corporations flock to trophy buildings in an effort to lure staff again to in-person work. Manhattan leasing exercise rose 46% January by way of April from the identical interval final 12 months, shrinking accessible area. Decrease Manhattan, in the meantime, simply had its strongest workplace leasing quarter since 2019.
“Midtown now could be so tight and so costly that some tenants are pressured to look again Downtown,” stated Howard Fiddle, a vice chairman at CBRE Group Inc., who co-heads its New York Metropolis Company Division. He’s heard from firms in Midtown about hovering costs and predicts a minimum of one family title will make the transfer south inside a 12 months. “As soon as one does it, extra will do it.”
Till lately, the penthouse at One World Commerce was house to some uncommon tenants. On the 89th ground, a Chinese language enterprise heart was set as much as host firms interested by investing within the nation. Nevertheless it was by no means occupied, and after years of empty convention rooms the tenant, a subsidiary of China’s Vantone Holdings, agreed to desert the lease.
Simply above, the ninetieth ground was taken over by broadcast tools to assist information stations transmit by way of the large constructing’s antenna. Technological developments have shrunk the cumbersome tools wanted to broadcast, liberating up half of the area for hire.
Shaia Hosseinzadeh, founding father of commodities-focused various asset supervisor OnyxPoint International Administration, has labored on the forty fifth ground of the constructing since relocating from Midtown in 2017. For him, the tower is an emblem of the town’s tenacity.
“For a decade after 9/11, it was only a big gap within the floor and it was very unhappy for us New Yorkers to endure,” stated Hosseinzadeh, who needed a workspace with nice views, facilities and pure mild, all of which he stated assist to draw staff and drive productiveness.
“You may have this tower that stands as a sworn statement to the resilience.”
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