SoHo Commercial Real Estate: Price per Square Foot and What a Startup Pays on Top

SoHo's average price per square foot changes with the listings, so we show it live and keep it out of this text: the SoHo hub prints the neighborhood's median, and the block on this page lists floors in one band with what each asks. The quoted figure is base rent for a year on rentable square feet. It leaves out electricity, annual escalations, the security deposit, furniture and cabling. A startup budgeting for SoHo commercial real estate should price all of those, then convert the total to a monthly cost per person before comparing two floors.

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Price a SoHo floor for me

Updated 2026-10-03 · Nomad Group

What the quoted price per square foot includes

A SoHo landlord quotes rent in dollars per rentable square foot per year. The rate times the floor's rentable area is the annual base rent, and a twelfth of that is the month. As a worked example, say a 5,000 square foot loft asks $90, a figure picked for the arithmetic and not a quote for SoHo: the base rent is $450,000 a year, or $37,500 a month.

That is the opening line of the budget, and every item below is added to it.

What a startup pays on top of SoHo rent

Electricity: roughly $2 to $4 per square foot per year, billed separately.
Escalations: the rent typically climbs 2.5 to 3 percent each year, so year five costs more than year one.
Security: a deposit or a letter of credit, posted at signing. Landlords ask more of a company with a short financial history.
Furniture and cabling: yours to buy unless the floor comes furnished and wired, as some SoHo floors do.
Buildout above the allowance: if you build, the landlord's contribution may not cover the whole job.

Carry the worked example forward: electricity at $3 adds $15,000 a year to that 5,000 square foot floor, and a 3 percent escalation adds $13,500 to the second year's rent. What office space really costs goes through the lines one at a time.

Rentable against usable in a SoHo loft: the space you can furnish

Rent is charged on rentable square feet, a measure that folds in a share of the building's common areas. The part you can put desks in, the usable area, runs 15 to 25 percent smaller. On the example floor, 5,000 rentable square feet leaves about 3,750 to 4,250 usable.

Two lofts quoted at the same price can therefore differ in real cost. Ask each landlord for the usable figure, or have the floor measured, and work out the rent per usable foot. Rentable and usable square feet explains where the gap comes from.

How Nomad compares two SoHo offers

We convert both offers to one basis: what each floor costs over the whole term, with free months, the improvement allowance, escalations and the rentable area all counted. Read that way, a floor with a higher asking rent and three free months can come out below a cheaper-looking one. Divide each total by the usable square feet, then by headcount and months, and you have a cost per usable foot and a cost per person to set side by side.

We also price what is particular to SoHo: whether the floor is furnished, how short a term the owner will accept, and the extra weeks landmark review can add if you plan to build. On your search, we work for you, and in most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee. Nomad also offers agency leasing and owner representation.

The floors below: one price band, SoHo and beyond

The block below is not a SoHo list. It shows floors across Manhattan in the $75 to $100 band, and SoHo floors appear in it when they fall inside that band. For the neighborhood alone, the SoHo hub lists every floor together with the median. SoHo floors at $75 to $100 narrows that list to this band.

Floors asking $75 to $100 per square foot

Live from our listings · 6 of the 11, cheapest first

11 of the 46 floors with a published rent ask $75 to $100 per square foot per year, from 2,940 to 13,266 square feet.

Floors: 11
Sizes: 2,940-13,266 sq ft
Asking rent: $78-$98 / sq ft

Every available floor, with asking rents →

The full guide

This page is the short answer. The long one, with the numbers worked through, is here:

Is there one average price per square foot for SoHo offices?

It moves with what is listed, so read it live. The SoHo hub shows the median and the range across our SoHo floors, and each floor's page gives its own asking rent. A single average hides a wide spread between a second-floor loft and a penthouse.

How do we turn a SoHo rent into a cost per person?

Use 175 square feet a person. Multiply 175 by the yearly rent per square foot and divide by twelve. As an example, say the rent is $90: 175 times 90 is $15,750 a year, or about $1,313 a person each month, before electricity.

Does a furnished SoHo floor change the budget?

Yes, in your favor at the start. Furniture and cabling are already there, so the upfront spend falls and the team moves in sooner. The owner usually recovers that cost in the rent, so check the total over your expected stay.

How much security will a SoHo landlord want from a startup?

It varies by owner and by the company's finances, and it is negotiable. A young company should expect a larger request than an established one, sometimes with a personal backstop known as a good guy guarantee. Security deposit covers the structures, and your attorney should review any guarantee.

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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