503-511 Broadway: Office Space for Lease

The penthouse, and what it already is

One space sits on our book at 503-511 Broadway, and it is a floor that has already made most of its own decisions.

• Penthouse, 5,552 rentable square feet, asking $125 per square foot per year. That is $694,000 a year and about $57,833 a month before electricity, and at the 175 square feet per person we plan against it carries roughly 32 desks. Benched tighter it takes about 40; a plan heavy on private offices lands nearer 22.

Our client's description of it is short and unusually confident: 14 foot ceilings, oversized bay windows, exposed brick, cast-iron columns and massive skylights, a one of a kind penthouse floor in SoHo, built and furnished for a team of 30. Plan against the 30 rather than our 32, because it describes a layout that exists instead of a ratio we apply. A team of 30 walks in and works. A team of 40 is asking the floor to do something it was not built to do, and on a plate like this the plan and photographs we hold settle that faster than a spreadsheet. Per seat, $57,833 across 30 desks is about $1,928 a month.

What $125 means, at the top of SoHo

This is the highest asking rent in the submarket and only three floors on our entire book ask more. The nine SoHo floors we carry run $68 to $125 with a median of $98, against a $75 median across the 49 floors we hold in eleven submarkets, so SoHo sits about 31% above the city while this floor sits 28% above SoHo and 67% above the citywide number.

Size explains part of the neighborhood median and none of this floor. The one block holding SoHo's midpoint down is the largest we carry, One Soho Square at 27,344 square feet asking $68, and a floor that size takes a per-foot discount everywhere in Manhattan. Among the boutique floors a 25 to 40 person company would shortlist, the range runs $78 at 6 Greene Street to $125 here and at 520 Broadway, with a median of $104. So the honest framing is a $21 premium over the middle of its own peer set, not a 28% one.

Price it against the nearest floor by size and the premium gets concrete. 6 Greene Street holds 4,900 square feet at $78, about $31,850 a month. This penthouse costs $25,983 a month more, $311,800 a year, for 652 additional feet. Almost none of that gap is a size gap. It is what the room is.

The submarket around the building

SoHo is served by the N/Q/R/W, the 6, the A/C/E and the B/D/F/M, four groups of trains converging from four directions, which is the reason a downtown address rarely costs a company candidates.

Tenants who sign at the top of this submarket are, in our experience, brand-led businesses buying a room they can put clients and press inside, lately including funded AI teams whose founders already live below Houston. A penthouse with skylights is not a commodity floor and it does not get valued like one, which cuts both ways when the term runs out.

Our SoHo book also carries 110 Greene Street at 3,750 square feet, 6 Greene Street at 4,900, 60 Charlton Street at 5,003, 104-110 Greene Street at 5,375 and 540 Broadway at 6,350. Of those, 520 Broadway is the true peer on paper, thirteen square feet apart and asking the identical $125, and the two belong on the same afternoon. NoHo, Hudson Square and Tribeca sit adjacent for any requirement smaller than 3,750 square feet.

What the tour has to settle, and what $125 leaves out

Skylights and a top floor raise questions that only bite later, which is why they get asked now: how the space performs on an August afternoon, what the cooling arrangement is, who cleans the glass, and whether summer needs shading a tenant pays for. Furnished is used loosely across this market, so walk the inventory and get in writing what stays. Ask about electrical capacity, the cost of overtime air, and whether the offering is direct or a sublease, since that answer alone changes term, buildout money and who you are negotiating with.

Then treat 5,552 as a rentable figure rather than a floor you can furnish. Loss factors in Manhattan ordinarily run 15% to 25%, so usable area lands near 4,719 to 4,164 square feet once corridors, lobby and restrooms are apportioned back. On a floor described as built for 30, that arithmetic checks the claim rather than decorating it, and the answer belongs in writing.

Base rent covers occupancy and, in most leases here, nightly cleaning of the office areas. Electricity is separate, typically $2 to $4 per square foot per year, $11,104 to $22,208 annually on this floor, with internet, insurance, overtime HVAC and the escalations on top. One dollar of asking rent is worth $5,552 a year here.

Where we push on a floor asking the top of its market

We represent tenants and never landlords, so we will not be sitting on both sides of this table. We publish the size, the rent and the approximate monthly openly, because withheld numbers tend to be numbers about to move.

On a floor already built and furnished the improvement allowance is nearly spent, and pushing there wastes the leverage. The money is in the term instead. An unchecked 3% annual step carries $125 to about $141 by year five and averages near $132 across five years, so a cap agreed at signature, stated as a percentage rather than tied to an index, is worth more than any conversation about the headline. Three months of free rent on a sixty-month term takes roughly 5% off the blend, which on this floor is $173,500 of value.

Beyond that we argue the security amount down and a burn-down in after two clean years, and we settle the restoration clause at signature rather than in year five, which on a floor with this much character can be the most expensive sentence in the document. Touring is generally possible inside the same week, and we put 520 Broadway on the same trip so the $125 gets judged against its only real peer.