Office Space for Your NYC Startup: Four Tests the Right Floor Has to Pass
Finding the perfect office for your NYC startup is really a matter of testing the two or three floors left after the tours. No floor is perfect. The right one passes four tests: it holds the team you expect to be in a year, most of your people reach it with one transfer or none, its full monthly cost per person fits the number you set, and its term ends no later than the plan you believe. Score every finalist on all four. A floor that fails one is out, however good the light. Among those that pass, the test your company can least afford to get wrong decides.
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Send me floors for 12 peopleUpdated 2026-10-03 · Nomad Group
The size test: room for the team you will be in a year
Measure every finalist in rentable square feet a head. The working figure is 175, or about 140 for benches with few closed rooms. A team that is hiring should add a margin of 15 to 25 percent: twelve people come to 2,100 square feet on the standard figure, or roughly 2,400 to 2,600 with the margin.
Pass mark: the rentable area is at least next year's headcount times the figure for your layout. What you can furnish is 15 to 25 percent less than the rentable number, so get a test fit before trusting it. The office space calculator runs the sum for any team.
The commute test: score each finalist from your team's home stations
Write down everyone's home subway station, then count the transfers each person needs to reach each finalist. Count transfers, not minutes: one change or none goes unnoticed, and two become a reason people hesitate over an offer.
Pass mark: most of the team, and the people in the roles hardest to fill, arrive with one transfer or fewer. Our neighborhood framework explains the method in full.
The cost test: one monthly figure per person
Landlords price a floor by the rentable square foot, for a year. Multiply that rate by the area, divide by twelve, then divide by headcount. Say a 2,100 square foot floor asks $60: base rent is $10,500 a month, or $875 a person for a team of 12.
Now add the rest. Power is billed on top, typically $2 to $4 a square foot annually. The rent steps up 2.5 to 3 percent a year, so price the final year as well as the first. The landlord also holds security, usually several months of rent as cash or a letter of credit.
Pass mark: the whole monthly figure per person sits at or under the ceiling you set before touring, in year one and in the last year.
The term test: a lease no longer than the plan you believe
Twelve months is the practical minimum on a private floor, and two-year and three-year terms are the usual short ones. A short commitment is priced higher per square foot, since the landlord has fewer months to earn back what it spent on the space.
Pass mark: the lease ends at or before the point where you can still forecast headcount, or it gives you a way out, such as the right to sublet.
How to rank two or three finalists with the four tests
- Score each floor the evening of the tour, while the details are fresh.
- Mark every test pass or fail. Any fail removes the floor.
- If more than one floor passes all four, pick the test that would hurt most to get wrong. For a team hiring hard that is usually the commute. For a team unsure of its headcount it is the term.
- If no floor passes, change the brief, not the pass marks.
The block below holds floors of roughly the right size for 12 people.
Floors that fit a team of 12
Live from our listings · 6 of the 7, smallest firstA team of 12 plans on about 2,100 square feet at 175 a person. 7 floors on our book sit in the range that fits, 2,100 to 3,780 square feet, asking $44 to $95 per square foot per year.
- Floors
- 7
- Sizes
- 2,500-3,750 sq ft
- Asking rent
- $44-$95 / sq ft
- 29 West 17th Street, Partial 7th Floor 2,500 sq ft $60/sq ft Union Square about 14 people
- 45 Broadway, Partial 12th Floor 2,624 sq ft $60/sq ft FiDi about 15 people
- 153 West 27th Street, Partial 11th Floor 2,937 sq ft $60/sq ft Chelsea about 17 people
- 900 Broadway, Partial 9th Floor 2,940 sq ft $92/sq ft Flatiron about 17 people
- 153 W 27th Street, Partial 3rd Floor 2,978 sq ft $44/sq ft Chelsea about 17 people
- 115 West 30th Street, Partial 4th Floor 3,500 sq ft $55/sq ft Chelsea about 20 people
The full guide
This page is the short answer. The long one, with the numbers worked through, is here:
Related topics
- Leasing Strategy for Startups: How Long, How Big and How Flexible
- Office Space for a Small Business in NYC: Start With the Monthly Budget
- A Startup Guide to NYC Office Leasing, Stage by Stage
- Startup Office Leasing Checklist for NYC Founders, Stage by Stage
What should a founder do if no finalist passes all four tests?
Go back to the brief. The usual cause is a budget set before anyone worked out the square feet, or a term the landlord would not shorten. Widen one input, such as a second neighborhood or a furnished floor, and ask for a new list. A first shortlist can be ready within 24 hours.
Can a startup score a floor from its listing before touring?
Three of the four tests, yes. Size, cost and commute can be worked out from a listing that shows the square feet, the asking rent and the address. The term needs a conversation with the landlord's side, and the tour is for what no listing shows: daylight, noise, the elevators. How to tour office space has the list.
Does a furnished floor score differently on the scorecard?
On cost and timing, yes. A floor that arrives furnished takes most of the furniture and cabling bill away, and new furniture alone runs $2,000 to $4,000 a desk. Move-in comes two to four weeks from signature, against 10 to 16 weeks of construction on a custom floor. The size, commute and term tests apply unchanged.
Talk to a broker
Want this answered for your team?
Tell us three things: team size, timing, budget. A first shortlist can be ready within 24 hours, with the asking rent on every floor that publishes one.
- Within the houra broker reaches out during business hours, no automated triage
- On your sidewe work for you on your search, and the landlord usually pays our fee
- Open pricingasking rent published for 46 of 49 floors, size and address for all
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