Flatiron vs NoMad: Office Space Compared

The $10 gap, and what actually sets it

Flatiron's median asking rent is $72 per square foot per year against $62 in NoMad, a difference of $10 a foot and roughly 16%. Against the $75 citywide median across our book, Flatiron sits about 4% below it and NoMad about 17% below, two stops on one scale rather than two markets. On a 6,000 square foot floor the gap is $60,000 a year, or $5,000 a month.

That gap belongs to the two lists rather than to the neighborhoods. Flatiron's six floors span $43 to $115, with the top set by its smallest floor and its penthouse, 900 Broadway's partial ninth at $92 for 2,940 square feet and the 30 West 21st Street penthouse at $115 for 5,250, because small floors and top floors carry a per-foot premium everywhere in New York. NoMad's four floors span $57 to $90, with three of them inside five dollars of each other and the Empire State Building's partial 43rd at $90 sitting apart.

One figure cuts against the headline. The cheapest floor on this page sits in Flatiron, 137 East 25th Street at $43 for 8,308 square feet, fourteen dollars below anything in NoMad today. Asking rent is not taking rent either: free months plus an improvement allowance move the effective number several dollars a foot, enough to erase a $10 median gap on the right deal.

What we hold in each, and who actually fits

Six floors in Flatiron, three in NoMad, and the inventories barely overlap on size.

• Flatiron: 6 floors, 2,940 to 10,562 square feet, roughly 17 to 60 desks, asking $43 to $115. Two are partial floors, and the largest, the entire ninth and tenth at 30 West 21st Street, carries no published ask.
• NoMad: 3 floors, 6,000 to 12,500 square feet, roughly 34 to 71 desks, asking $57 to $62. All three are entire floors.

At the 175 square feet per person we plan against, the consequence is blunt. A company under 32 people has four Flatiron floors to look at and nothing in NoMad, and at 32 the Empire State Building's partial 43rd, 5,621 square feet at $90, joins the list. Past 60, one option exists across both submarkets, the entire twelfth at 1239 Broadway. The contested band is 32 to 60 desks, where 137 East 25th Street and the 30 West 21st Street double floor run against 1235 Broadway, 22 West 27th Street and the Empire State Building's partial 43rd.

Trains, and the hiring radius they buy

Our record for Flatiron reads N/Q/R/W, 4/5/6, F/M, L at 14th and 23rd. The NoMad record reads N/R/W, 6, F/M at 23rd and 28th. Both name 23rd Street and share the N/R/W, the 6 and the F/M, so a candidate boards the same train either way and the difference is five blocks of sidewalk. Flatiron adds the Q, the 4/5 and the L.

Those three lines are the whole transit argument, and they land in hiring rather than on the rent bill, because each turns some set of home neighborhoods from a two-seat commute into a one-seat one, which a candidate holding two offers weighs more heavily than any amenity in the building. NoMad answers with proximity: our note on that submarket puts Grand Central and Union Square within ten minutes of the N/R/W and 6 at 28th.

Our recommendation, by tenant type

Under 35 people, take Flatiron, and do not let the per-foot number argue you out of it. The smallest floor available in NoMad is the Empire State Building's partial 43rd, 5,621 square feet at $90, or $505,890 a year, and the cheapest is 22 West 27th Street's 6,000 feet at $57, or $342,000. 900 Broadway's partial ninth is 2,940 square feet at $92, and it costs $270,480 a year. The cheaper submarket bills a 20-person company $71,520 more every year of the term for space it will not use. Per-foot rent is the wrong denominator when the floor is the wrong size.

Between 35 and 60 desks the decision is real and we work both lists. Cost-led teams should start at 137 East 25th Street, where 8,308 square feet at $43 runs about $29,770 a month and undercuts everything in NoMad. Teams that want an entire plate at a predictable price should start in NoMad, where all three floors sit inside a five dollar band.

Past 60 desks the comparison ends: the entire twelfth at 1239 Broadway, 12,500 square feet at $62 and about $775,000 a year, is the only floor across both that seats you. The tenant who should knowingly pay Flatiron's premium is the one recruiting off the L or the 4/5, or the one that wants a small full floor at all.

How to settle this in one afternoon

Nine floors sit between these two lists, a short walk apart, so this resolves faster on foot than in a spreadsheet. Fix the headcount you expect eighteen months out, convert it at about 175 feet a person, and we pull the four to six floors that clear it. One afternoon covers both, and we hold floors in each.

Then we take asking rents down to a net effective number, where the two lists converge: free rent, the improvement allowance and who files and builds, escalations, electric and cleaning, the deposit and whether it takes a letter of credit, and a good guy guarantee. Direct deals with landlord money need lead time for DOB filing and construction, while a sublease takes the space as it stands. Ask us for the number on 30 West 21st Street's entire ninth and tenth, which we do not publish.