Chelsea vs Bryant Park: Office Space Compared

The $40 gap and what the premium buys

Chelsea's nine available floors ask $44 to $64 per square foot per year, median $56. Bryant Park's four ask $65 to $125, median $96. The distance between the medians is $40 per foot per year, 42% cheaper looking down from Bryant Park and a 71% premium looking up from Chelsea. Against the $75 citywide median across our book, Chelsea sits about 25% under and Bryant Park roughly 28% over, and Chelsea's priciest floor at $64 still asks $32 less than the Bryant Park median, though it now sits a dollar under Bryant Park's cheapest floor, the entire 4th at 1450 Broadway at $65.

That premium is not a discount you are declining. Chelsea is loft stock in the mid-20s, garment-era buildings where one tenant usually holds the whole floor behind keyed elevator entry. Bryant Park is trophy and Class A tower space wrapped around the park, priced on the address and the light as much as on the floor plate. Part of the gap is measurement and not value, so ask what the rentable figure is doing to the usable one.

What we hold, and which teams it houses

We hold nine Chelsea floors from 2,937 to 18,668 square feet, roughly 17 to 107 desks at the 175 square feet per person we plan against. Bryant Park is four floors from 4,109 to 17,296 square feet, about 23 to 99 desks: the entire 4th at 1450 Broadway at $65, the entire 40th in the same building at $95, the entire 33rd at 5 Bryant Park at $96, and the entire 55th at 500 Fifth Avenue at $125. Bryant Park now answers most of the headcounts Chelsea answers, so rent decides more of this comparison than it used to. Under about 23 desks, and past 99, Chelsea is the only one of the two with anything to show.

Price that choice on comparable footprints. The entire 9th floor at 104 West 27th Street is 7,047 square feet at $59, about $34,600 a month. The entire 33rd at 5 Bryant Park is 7,500 square feet at $96, $60,000 a month. Same team, near enough the same footprint, about $25,400 a month apart and a bit over $300,000 a year.

Getting there, and getting your people there

The Chelsea floors sit on the A/C/E, 1 and F/M at 14th and 23rd, with the PATH at 23rd Street bringing Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey commutes within one seat. Bryant Park has the B/D/F/M, 7 and N/Q/R/W at 42nd, and Grand Central is a five-minute walk.

Commute geography is a hiring question. If the people you most need to hire arrive by commuter rail, a Bryant Park address deletes the last leg of their trip twice a day for the length of the term, and that belongs in an offer conversation. If your pool sits in Brooklyn, on the West Side or across the river, Chelsea does the same job and keeps the $40. Run that test on real home zip codes.

Our recommendation, by tenant type

Our position is simple. Most tenants comparing these two should sign in Chelsea, and we say so knowing it prices our own fee lower.

• Software, design and media teams under 60 people: Chelsea. The inventory fits every size you need, and the money the gap frees up belongs in headcount and buildout.
• Professional services, funds and law firms whose clients come to them: Bryant Park. The tenancy around the park is your peer group and the address does work in the room.
• Teams of 40 to 45 with a heavy commuter-rail contingent: Bryant Park is defensible on the commute alone.
• Anyone under 20 people: Chelsea by elimination, since the smallest Bryant Park floor we hold seats about 23. Above that, Bryant Park has an answer at 23, 40, 43 and 99 desks, and the question goes back to money.

Paying $96 can be the right call, and we will make that case. When the office is where business closes, the premium is a sales expense rather than a real estate one: one additional mandate a year covers that $300,000 and then some. That logic collapses when the pitch story is thin, and paying $96 for space clients never enter is the most expensive avoidable mistake we watch tenants make.

How to settle it in one afternoon

Both are tourable the same day. The F and M serve both submarkets, so the trip between them is one ride, and because we hold floors in each the schedule is ours to set. See Bryant Park first, while your eye is fresh; the reverse order flatters it.

Bring the headcount plan for 36 months out, not today's number, because size eliminates one of these submarkets faster than rent does. Take a test fit on the two finalists, then get the same answers from both landlords in writing: how the escalation is written, how electric and cleaning are handled, what free rent is on the table and what the landlord will fund on the buildout. Those four answers, not the asking rent, give you the number you will pay.