What a Commercial Leasing Consultant Does for an NYC Startup, Week by Week

Week one: the call, the brief and the first shortlist

Day one is a conversation. You supply three numbers: headcount now and where the plan puts it a year out, the date you need to be in, and a monthly budget. Neighborhoods and must-haves help. We turn that into a written requirement and send back a shortlist, each floor with its size and asking rent.

By the end of the week you can have toured. Bring the people who will decide. The tour checklist covers what to look at on site.

Weeks two to five: proposals, the letter of intent and the lease

• Proposals. We ask the landlords of your finalists to price a deal, then convert every response to one basis so the offers can be compared.
• Letter of intent. Rent, term, free rent, the allowance and the security are settled in a short document before any lawyer drafts.
• Lease. Offer to signature usually takes three to five weeks, most of it attorneys trading drafts.

Your part in this stretch is paperwork. A landlord asks a young company for its financials and sizes the security deposit from them, so a well-organized package, ready when the proposal goes out, is the simplest way to hold the schedule.

Weeks six to eight, or months four to six: getting to desks

The route decides the rest of the calendar. A furnished or pre-built floor is usually ready two to four weeks after signing, which is how a startup reaches desks inside two months. A custom buildout typically takes 10 to 16 weeks, and that stretches the whole job to four to six months. Our timeline guide splits both routes into their phases.

The floors below are the furnished and prebuilt ones we list, the fast route. A startup with a date to hit should see some of them alongside any raw space.

After the lease is signed: buildout, furniture, move-in, upkeep

Signing is closer to the middle than the end. If the floor needs work, Nomad's construction management team coordinates the design, files with the Department of Buildings, gets the landlord's approvals and manages the contractor. Furniture, cabling and AV usually sit outside the landlord's allowance, so they go into the same budget as the construction instead of arriving later as a surprise.

Then comes the move, and after it the running of the office. Facilities management covers cleaning, repairs, vendors and on-call support once the team is in.