Flex Office Space for Rent in NYC: Cost per Person, per Square Foot, and What Sits on Top

The per-person arithmetic for whoever holds the budget

A private floor's price is stated in dollars per rentable square foot for a year, which tells a finance lead nothing until it is converted. Multiply headcount by 175 for the area, multiply the area by the annual rent, and divide by 12 for the month.

Say a floor asks $60 per square foot, a round figure chosen for illustration and not taken from our listings. One person is 175 times 60, divided by 12, which comes to $875 a month. Twenty people need about 3,500 square feet, so the same illustration gives $17,500 a month in base rent. The 175 already includes each person's share of meeting rooms, phone booths and the pantry. The cost guide runs the full version, one-time costs included.

What a flex price bundles, and what it bills separately

• A coworking desk bundles nearly everything: furniture, internet, cleaning, coffee and a staffed front desk.
• A furnished private floor on a flexible lease bundles the furniture and the fit-out. On a Flex by Nomad floor the wiring, the cleaning, the pantry restocking and on-call support are arranged as well.
• Electricity is billed on top of rent on a lease. Expect roughly $2 to $4 per square foot per year.
• Escalations raise the rent each year, by roughly 2.5 to 3 percent.
• A security deposit or letter of credit is posted at signing and held for the term.

Those last three apply to a flexible lease and a traditional one alike.

Against coworking: where the desk bill overtakes the floor

At roughly $800 to $1,400 a desk, 20 coworking desks come to $16,000 to $28,000 each month, and the invoice grows by one more desk rate with every hire. A floor is charged on area, so the cost per person falls as the team fills it. Under about 15 people the desks usually come out cheaper. Above about 20 the floor usually does. Flexible lease or coworking works the comparison at several team sizes.

Against a traditional lease: what the shorter term costs

Per square foot, a flexible term usually costs somewhat more than a long one, and the improvement allowance is smaller, since the landlord has less time to earn back what it has spent. What you do not pay is the other side of the ledger. There is no buildout to fund, at $50 to $150 a square foot for custom work, and no furniture to buy. Move-in comes two to four weeks after you sign. A custom buildout typically needs 10 to 16 weeks.

Who pays the broker, and the price band shown below

In most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee, on a flexible lease as on any other office lease, with the specifics written into the lease you sign. The block on this page is cut to one price band, the floors from $50 up to $75. It is recalculated on every build, so the current range and count are there, not here.