Corporate Real Estate Brokers and Headquarters-Size Office Leasing in Manhattan

What changes at headquarters scale: plates, systems, services

• Floor plates. A large team works better on one level or a few stacked floors than scattered through a building. Ask for the stacking plan: desks per floor, how many floors, and which ones connect.
• Layout efficiency. On a big plate, where the elevator core sits can change the seat count by a whole team. A test fit settles it before any proposal is requested.
• Building systems. Air handling sized for density, elevator capacity at nine in the morning, power, and freight access for a buildout.
• Services. Security at all hours, a staffed lobby, and a management office that answers.

Midtown, from 34th Street to 59th, is where Manhattan keeps most of its floors of this kind, with nearly every subway line and the commuter railroads within reach. The block on this page shows the Midtown floors we list. The Midtown guide describes the district.

One New York headquarters, or a requirement in several cities

Be clear which you have. If the requirement is national, with offices in several cities negotiated together or a portfolio to manage, a large national firm is built for it. The test of any such firm is whether one accountable person compares the cities on the same basis: effective rent, term and timing.

If the requirement is one headquarters in Manhattan, what counts is who knows these buildings and who will do the work. Ask each firm which person runs the search day to day and which leases of similar size that person has closed for tenants. How to choose a tenant rep broker sets out the questions, and they apply at any size.

How a headquarters lease is negotiated with institutional owners

Midtown towers are mostly owned by institutions with leasing committees and standard documents. The asking rent moves little. Free rent, the landlord's contribution to the buildout and the structure of the term move more, and a tenant with a priced construction plan gets a better hearing on the allowance. Terms on offer tend to be long, five to ten years, so negotiate the flexibility in writing: a right to give back space, sublet and assignment language, and a first offer on adjoining floors. Your counsel should confirm each one in the lease.

How a corporate tenant's broker is paid

In most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee, under an agreement between the landlord and the brokers, and the fee is commonly calculated from the rent over the term. There is no standard rate; it is negotiated deal by deal. A corporate tenant should ask every firm, in writing, how it is paid on the deal and by whom. Nomad Property Group is a licensed New York real estate broker. On your search, we work for you. The firm also offers agency leasing and owner representation, so ask us to name any building on your list that Nomad leases for its owner; the brokerage page explains how that is handled.

After a headquarters lease: building the floor and running it

A headquarters lease is followed by a large construction project and then by years of operations. Nomad offers construction management, facilities management and asset management alongside brokerage, so the buildout can be priced while the lease is still being negotiated and delivered by the same firm afterward. The firm has 300+ offices delivered and 2M+ square feet leased.