MIDTOWN MANHATTAN OFFICE SPACE

Work in the Country’s Most Famous Office Rentals Market

Midtown Manhattan is the most famous commercial office space market in America. Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, Avenue of the Americas, 42^nd Street, 57th Street--the names suggest prestige, the pinnacle of the business world, the Fortune 500.

You may need to be a pretty big company to afford office space for rent in a Class A Midtown building. Midtown boasts 365 Class A buildings, or most of the city's stock. Rents average $71.10 per square foot, and there is a 8.0% Class A vacancy rate.

Midtown Manhattan has some of the city's --and country's-- choicest commercial real estate: 767 Fifth Avenue (the former General Motors Building), 9 West 57th Street, 200 Park Avenue (the MetLife Building), 4 Times Square (also known as the Condé Nast Building), and 1585 Broadway (also known as the Morgan Stanley Building) are just a few.

You Don't Need to Be a Fortune 500 Company to Rent Midtown Commercial Real Estate

You don't need to be a Fortune 500 powerhouse to rent in Midtown, however. There are 632 Class B office buildings, with a 5.5% vacancy rate, at an average $42.25 per square foot. There are also 620 Class C buildings, with a 4.7% vacancy rate. At an average $34.39 per square foot these buildings place you in the center of the universe at relative bargain rents.

Before the current Grand Central Terminal opened on 42^nd Street in 1913, most of the prime New York City office space was downtown. But the new railroad station, which was built as part of a complex of buildings including office buildings, hotels, apartment houses, and private clubhouses, acted as a magnet, drawing offices from Downtown to Midtown. The major shift occurred in the 1920s, and ever since Midtown has been the "central business district" of New York City. In 1930, the Chrysler Building, on 42^nd Street at Lexington Avenue, was the tallest building in the world--the first office building to rise higher than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Just a year later, the Empire State Building, on Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, overtook the Chrysler, and held the "world's tallest" title for some 40 years.

Lease Office Space in the Most Exciting, Amenity-Packed Manhattan Commercial Real Estate District

In recent years, we've seen west Midtown rezoned to encourage NYC office space development. Times Square, world-famous for its elaborate signs and as the heart of the Broadway Theater District, had never been a place for office rentals. Today, following rezoning and a crackdown on crime and unwholesome activities, Times Square is as hot a commercial real-estate market as there is in the country, and has attracted such major enterprises as Ernst & Young, Morgan Stanley, Bertelsmann, Condé Nast, Reuters, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

To the east on 42^nd Street, Bryant Park has been rejuvenated through a major public-private initiative. It is Midtown's living room. Across from its northwest corner now stands the Bank of America Tower, second tallest in the city after the Empire State Building.

See Why Midtown Manhattan Commands the Greatest Prestige

To the north along the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) ranges one of the most remarkable assemblages of office space New York has to offer, including the headquarters of News Corporation, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster, and Time & Life. Some of these buildings are part of Rockefeller Center, built in two major phases, in the 1930s and 1970s, and still the largest private business complex in America. Rockefeller Center, with its lushly planted Promenade, ice skating rink, Christmas tree, and Radio City Music Hall, is also one of the most loved and visited attractions in the New York City.

To the east of Bryant Park is Grand Central Terminal, restored and renovated in the 1990s so that it is at least as beautiful as when it first opened. To the north of it on Park Avenue is the most prestigious corporate corridor in America, including the buildings of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Colgate-Palmolive, as well as classics of modern architecture such as the Seagram Building and Lever House.

Finally, at the southern end of Central Park stands the newly renovated Plaza Hotel, the centerpiece of the currently most impressive office rentals, shopping, and hotel district in America, extending west to the newly chic Columbus Circle, home of the Time Warner Center. Plaza District retailers include such prestigious names as Bergdorf-Goodman, Tiffany, the Apple Store, and F.A.O. Schwarz.

Midtown Manhattan boasts the Theater District, the finest restaurants in Manhattan, every conceivable purveyor of goods and services, and a special magic in the air that you can travel the world over and never find duplicated.