MIDTOWN SOUTH OFFICE SPACE

Once upon a time, the Manhattan commercial real estate market was divided between Downtown and Midtown. A cluster of tall office buildings around Madison Square, at 23^rd Street, was a minor exception. But with the economic booms from the 1980s through the 2000s, as well as with the growth of whole new sectors of the New York City commercial real estate economy, Midtown South not only became a viable option for many users of New York City office space, but in due course a highly desirable option.

Let Us Show You That Midtown South Is Now Ready for Every Kind of Business Requiring NYC Office Space

Madison Square remains the focal point of Midtown South. Two insurance giants--Metropolitan Life and New York Life--have long maintained their headquarters on the east side of the square. The classic Flatiron Building, on 23^rd Street where Manhattan's two most fabled thoroughfares--Fifth Avenue and Broadway--intersect, has, since 1902, been one of the iconic office buildings of New York City. In 1909, Metropolitan Life built an office tower at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 24^th Street. It was the world's tallest building for four years. In the late 1920s, when the American economy was booming, MetLife started to build a new tower on Madison between 24^th and 25^th streets. Though it was intended to be a new world's-tallest-building, MetLife, as the economy slowed down, cut its losses and built the building only a third as high as it was designed to be. In the roaring economy of the 1990s, Crédit Suisse First Boston, a major global financial services firm, took over the building in what was at the time the decade's largest NYC office space lease.

Midtown South Featured Properties

Office Loft
1,000 SF
$3,500
Broadway
Greenwich Village

Office Loft Sublease
2,000 SF
$7,166
Fifth Avenue
Gramercy Park

Full Floor Commercial Loft
2,750 SF
$10,312
Hudson Street
Tribeca

Commercial Loft
1,524 SF
$3,683
Broadway
Chelsea

Commercial Loft
3,708 SF
$9,115
Broadway
Chelsea

Office Loft
2,000 SF
$4,500
29th Street
Chelsea

Office Space
400 SF
$1,266
Seventh Avenue
Chelsea

Office Space
2,723 SF
$6,467
21st Street
Flatiron District

Office or Medical
2,100 SF
$6,300
21st Street
Flatiron District

Office Space
7,500
$21,250
Madison Avenue
Park Avenue/Madison Square

This signaled that Midtown South had arrived. Publishing companies, advertising agencies, and design firms had been moving down. But when financial services was added to the "creative industries," the transformation of Midtown South was complete. Soon, Midtown South became the hottest part of the city for restaurants and upscale retail. Companies pitched in for the public-private effort to renew Madison Square and make it the beautiful green oasis (complete with restaurateur Danny Meyer's now-legendary Shake Shack) that Bryant Park had become for Midtown.

Find a Loft That Is Perfectly Suited to Your New York City Office Space Needs

Amid the upmarket changes, Midtown South has not lost its allure for the creative industries. In the 1990s part of Midtown South came to be known as "Silicon Alley"--the nation's largest center for Internet content production. Creative-sector companies value loft buildings very highly. They love the flexibility and feeling of these late 19th-century buildings constructed as factories and warehouses. These loft buildings don't count as Class A office space, but creative companies love tricking them out to what for them amounts to Class A office space. Few places offer more converted and convertible loft space than Midtown South.

Midtown South has only 27 Class A office properties, with a 9.1% vacancy rate and an average rent of $52.52 per square foot. The area's 360 Class B office properties average a rent of $54.79 per square foot. Nowhere else in the city does Class B space average a higher rent than Class A space--but this is the loft phenomenon. An Internet or design firm will pay more to be in a New York commercial loft space than in conventional commercial office space. Start-ups are accommodated by the 685 Class C office properties, which have a 7% vacancy rate and rents averaging $43.60 per square foot.

Excellent transportation, the city's most exciting nightlife, nearby beautiful residential neighborhoods, and lots of good deals and wonderful Manhattan commercial real estate make it no mystery that Midtown South is considered so desirable.