Bryant Park vs Midtown: Office Space Compared

The $29 gap and what actually sits behind it

Bryant Park's median asking rent across the floors we represent is $96 per square foot per year and Midtown's is $125. That $29 is about 24 percent, and on a 7,000 square foot floor it is $203,000 a year, better than a million dollars across a five year term.

Both sit well above the middle of our book. The median across the 49 floors we carry in eleven New York submarkets is $75, which puts Bryant Park roughly 28 percent above it and Midtown roughly 67 percent. Neither is a value play against the rest of Manhattan. This is a comparison between two expensive neighbors.

The ranges tell more than the medians do. Bryant Park asks $65 to $125, Midtown $79 to $130, so the gap lives at the bottom of each book rather than the top: the dearest floors are within $5 of each other while the cheapest are $14 apart. Read the Midtown median with one caution, since it rests on three published rents because the entire 10th at 45 West 45th Street carries no posted number.

What we hold in each, and who each can house

Availability decides most of these searches before rent gets a vote, and the two books are shaped differently.

• Bryant Park: 4 floors, 4,109 to 17,296 square feet, roughly 23 to 99 desks at the 175 square feet per person we plan against, asking $65 to $125, and all four are entire floors.
• Midtown: 4 floors, 7,092 to 19,097 square feet, roughly 41 to 109 desks, asking $79 to $130, two entire floors and two partial ones.

Those two lines settle the matter at both ends. A team of about twenty-three has one option across the pair, the 4,109 foot entire 40th at 1450 Broadway, column free and delivered furnished with three sides of light on our record, because the next smallest floor in either submarket is 6,928 feet and plans for forty. A team of a hundred and five has one option the other way, the 19,097 foot partial 40th at 277 Park Avenue, since the next largest seats 99. Between about 41 and 99 desks the two compete properly.

One pairing prices the argument. 1450 Broadway's entire 4th is 17,296 square feet at $65, about $93,687 a month, with a redesigned lobby, upgraded systems and 24/7 concierge on our record. 277 Park's partial 40th is 19,097 feet at $130, about $206,884. Midtown costs $113,197 more every month for 1,801 more square feet. At the top of each range the two converge instead: 500 Fifth Avenue's entire 55th is 6,928 feet at $125, about $72,167, and 520 Madison Avenue's partial 21st is 7,092 feet at the same $125, about $73,875.

Getting there, and getting your people there

Transit for Bryant Park is B/D/F/M, 7, N/Q/R/W at 42nd. Midtown reaches nearly every line, with Grand Central and Penn within reach.

This is the one comparison on our site where the commute rarely decides anything, because these two are neighbors rather than opposites and Midtown's own near-list opens with Bryant Park. Bryant Park sits beside Midtown, Grand Central and Times Square; Midtown beside Bryant Park, Grand Central and Penn Plaza. Both are places people pass through rather than places they live, so map your roster's home neighborhoods against the terminals rather than against the office.

What that leaves is a decision made on the floor and on the money, which is unusual and clarifying.

Our recommendation, by tenant type

Our default here is Bryant Park, and specifically its cheap end. 1450 Broadway's fourth floor at $65 is the only floor across both submarkets asking below the $75 citywide median, on the second largest plate in the pair, and a tenant who needs area rather than an address should start there and will probably finish there.

Pay for Midtown in three situations, and we make each case to clients regularly. When you need more than 99 desks on a single level, which only 277 Park delivers. When the installation you want already exists: 520 Madison's trading layout carries 44 workstations, three offices or meeting rooms, a large and a medium conference room, an eat-in pantry and reception, while 277 Park holds 17 offices, 8 meeting rooms, 4 conference rooms and 52 workstations. And when clients come to you, so the room does part of the selling.

The tenant we steer away from Midtown is the growth-stage company of forty-five taking a partial floor at $125 for the address alone. 5 Bryant Park's entire 33rd is 7,500 square feet at $96, furnished, about $60,000 a month, seating 43. The partial 21st at 520 Madison seats 41 for $73,875. That is $13,875 a month more for two fewer desks and a shared landing.

One asterisk worth knowing: the 8,230 foot entire 10th at 45 West 45th Street is the only floor across both submarkets with no published rent. We will get it for you before you tour, not after.

The practical next step

These two sit minutes apart and we hold four floors in each, so settle the question on foot in a single afternoon rather than by email across three weeks. Standing in a $65 full floor and a $130 partial floor on the same day ends the argument quickly.

Bring a two year headcount plan rather than today's number, because that figure decides which submarket belongs in the search at all. Ask for usable square footage alongside the rentable figure on every floor, and press hardest on the two Midtown partials, where a landing and a demising line sit inside the number you pay on. A lower rent against a worse loss factor is not a lower rent.

Settle how electricity and cleaning are charged, what the base tax year is, and what free rent and improvement money the landlord will fund, then judge the two on taking rent rather than asking rent. Medians built on four floors a side move the day one of them leases, so ask us for the live position first.