Loft Office Space in NYC: What a Loft Is, and How to Lease One

What a loft office is, as a building type

The loft is a kind of building before it is a style. Cast iron let SoHo's builders hang very large windows between thin columns, so a floor there takes daylight from both ends. Timber columns, high ceilings and exposed brick belong to the structure; they are not decoration. Many of these buildings put a single tenant on each floor. The SoHo guide describes the district and its buildings.

Where loft buildings are in Manhattan

SoHo, between Houston and Canal Streets, is the cast-iron district, and the floors shown below are there. The same idea continues to the north: garment-era lofts in Chelsea's mid-20s, prewar lofts in Flatiron around Broadway and Fifth Avenue, and boutique prewar buildings in NoMad. Tribeca has converted warehouse lofts as well. The lofts north of SoHo usually ask less, so walk two districts before deciding.

What to check in a loft before leasing it

• Columns. Walk the grid with a desk layout in mind. A test fit shows what the columns cost in seats.
• Elevators. An older building may have one passenger car and one freight car shared by every tenant.
• Power and air conditioning. Capacity differs from building to building and should be confirmed in writing.
• Sound. Hard floors and high ceilings carry noise, so plan for acoustic treatment.
• Landmark status. Most of SoHo is protected, which restricts signage and facade work and adds two to four weeks to buildout approvals.

Loft buildings are usually labeled Class B. Class A, B and C explains why the letter says little about the floor.

What size loft a team should lease

Plan on 175 square feet a person. A dense open plan, the layout lofts suit best, works at about 140. Both are rentable figures: the area you can actually furnish is 15 to 25 percent smaller, because rentable area includes a share of the building's common space. A 30-person team therefore looks at roughly 5,250 square feet, or about 4,200 seated densely. An open floor has no existing walls to hide rooms behind, so count meeting rooms and phone booths before you count desks.

What a SoHo loft costs, and how long leasing one takes

Asking rents are quoted per rentable square foot per year, and SoHo sits toward the upper end of the loft neighborhoods because the supply cannot grow. The block below gives the current range for the SoHo floors we list, and the SoHo hub shows each of them. On timing, a prebuilt loft can have a decisive team working six to eight weeks from its first tour, while a floor that must be built out stretches that to four to six months. Nomad runs the search, the lease and the construction as one job.