Some 1,100 feet in the air, almost as high as you can go anywhere in New York City, One World Trade Center is leasing office space for the first time — a striking milestone in Lower Manhattan’s long recovery.
Ten years after the skyscraper opened, the 89th and 90th floors are now available to the highest bidder searching for square footage in New York’s increasingly crowded commercial real estate market.
The new tenants will sit atop the sprawling group of skyscrapers that make up the rebuilt World Trade Center complex, overlooking the two vast 9/11 Memorial pools that mark where the original Twin Towers stood.
But even here, business calculations prevail. The big one: How much is someone willing to pay to move into what is being billed as the highest office for lease in the Western Hemisphere?
The family-owned Durst Organization, one of the developers, is aiming to command rents as high as $160 per square foot — a sum beyond anything seen in Downtown Manhattan and closer to the prices associated with prime office space in Midtown, where many of the city’s finance firms migrated over the past decade. With the new offering, the Durst Organization says it may well lure at least one of them back.
“It’s certainly likely to be something in finance,” said Eric Engelhardt, who heads leasing of the penthouse floors for the Durst Organization. “Maybe it’s a venture capital that invests in these technology companies that we have all over the building.”
A 75-second ride up two elevators, the gods-eye view stretches out from the 46,000 square feet of available space, with a 360-degree panorama of the city and beyond. Above helicopter view, at eye level 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.
Existing tenants of the 3.1 million square foot building — built by the Durst Organization and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and currently 95 per cent occupied — include Advance Magazine Publishers Inc.’s Conde Nast, tech marketers Wunderkind Corp. and investment firm Energy Capital Partners.
It’s a sharp contrast to the towers’ former makeup, which included floor after floor of insurance firms, brokerages and banking giants such as Morgan Stanley. Their new homes can be spotted several miles away from the top of One World Trade Center — closer to Grand Central Terminal and the glistening new towers of Hudson Yards.
Since they left, the Financial District has undergone a makeover, adding glass towers where stone once ruled and replacing silent trading floors with luxury condos. The neighborhood is dotted with high-end malls, from the vast Brookfield Place to the distinctive Oculus structure, also a giant transit hub that links what’s now dubbed FiDi with New Jersey.
And while vacant office space in New York remains above pre-pandemic levels, demand for prime locations has surged in recent months as firms flock to trophy buildings in an effort to lure employees back to in-person work. Manhattan leasing activity rose 46 per cent January through April from the same period last year, shrinking available space. Lower Manhattan, meanwhile, just had its strongest office leasing quarter since 2019.
“Midtown now is so tight and so expensive that some tenants are forced to look back Downtown,” said Howard Fiddle, a vice chairman at CBRE Group Inc., who co-heads its New York City Agency Department. He’s heard from companies in Midtown about soaring prices and predicts at least one household name will make the move south within a year. “Once one does it, more will do it.”
Until recently, the penthouse at One World Trade was home to some unusual tenants. On the 89th floor, a Chinese business center was set up to host companies interested in investing in the country. But it was never occupied, and after years of empty conference rooms the tenant, a subsidiary of China’s Vantone Holdings, agreed to abandon the lease.
Just above, the 90th floor was taken over by broadcast equipment to help news stations transmit via the giant building’s antenna. Technological advancements have shrunk the bulky equipment needed to broadcast, freeing up half of the space for rent.
Shaia Hosseinzadeh, founder of commodities-focused alternative asset manager OnyxPoint Global Management, has worked on the 45th floor of the building since relocating from Midtown in 2017. For him, the tower is a symbol of the city’s tenacity.
“For a decade after 9/11, it was just a giant hole in the ground and it was very sad for us New Yorkers to endure,” said Hosseinzadeh, who wanted a workspace with great views, amenities and natural light, all of which he said help to attract employees and drive productivity.
“You have this tower that stands as a testimony to the resilience.”
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