Flatiron vs Union Square: Office Space Compared

The $16 gap and what is behind it

Across the 6 spaces we hold in Flatiron, asking rents run $43 to $115 per square foot per year with a median of $72, while Union Square's 3 spaces run $60 to $115 with a median of $88. The gap is about $16 a foot, roughly 18% cheaper in Flatiron, close to $80,000 a year on a 5,000 square foot floor. Against the $75 citywide median across our book, Flatiron sits about 4% below the middle of New York and Union Square about 17% above, so this is a choice between a submarket priced just under the city's midpoint and one priced well over it, not a trade of price for prestige.

Building quality explains less of that gap than most tenants expect, since both submarkets top out at the same $115 ask and 900 Broadway carries a floor on each of our lists. Thin inventory explains more. Only two of the three Union Square floors carry a published number, one at $60 and one at $115, so the median lands at $88 without a single floor actually asking it, and that $60 floor undercuts the Flatiron median by $12.

Read every ask as an opening position, since free rent, improvement dollars and escalation terms can swing effective cost by more than the $16 between these medians.

What we actually hold in each

Flatiron's 6 floors run 2,940 to 10,562 square feet, roughly 17 to 60 desks at the 175 square feet per person we plan around. Union Square's 3 floors run 2,500 to 13,754 square feet, about 14 to 79 desks. Union Square owns both extremes on paper, but the middle of its range is empty.

That emptiness decides more searches than the rent does.

• Under 15 desks: Union Square holds the smallest and cheapest floor on either side, 2,500 square feet at $60.
• Roughly 30 to 60 desks: Flatiron without competition, with floors at 5,250, 5,500, 8,308 and 10,562 square feet, while Union Square offers nothing between 4,000 and 13,754.
• Seventy desks and up: only 836 Broadway's 13,754 square foot second floor, so Union Square by default.

Near 4,000 square feet the two genuinely compete, 54 West 21st Street at 3,960 square feet and $72 against Suite 202 at 900 Broadway, 4,000 square feet at $115. Same space, about $172,000 a year apart.

Getting there and getting your people there

In Flatiron the lines are N/Q/R/W, 4/5/6, F/M, L at 14th and 23rd; in Union Square they are 4/5/6, N/Q/R/W, L all at 14th Street. The overlap is close to total. Union Square concentrates its lines into one interchange, and Flatiron spreads the same trunk lines across 14th and 23rd while adding the F/M.

Concentration matters more than count once hiring is the issue. A single interchange at 14th Street keeps door-to-door times short from every borough and puts Brooklyn's engineering talent one stop away. Flatiron's spread costs a few minutes and buys back the F/M. Walking between the two takes minutes, so what you are choosing is the station your team surfaces at, and whether the people you have not hired yet live where it helps.

Our recommendation, by tenant type

For a 30 to 60 person company that wants a full floor with its name in the elevator lobby, take Flatiron, and it is not close. Every floor in that band across both submarkets is a Flatiron floor, and the median runs $16 a foot cheaper.

A team under fifteen watching the budget should start at 29 West 17th Street, 2,500 square feet at $60, the smallest floor and the lowest monthly check we hold in this comparison. Union Square takes the value crown for once.

Pay the Union Square premium when hiring is the binding constraint on the business. A company adding twenty people over the next eighteen months is buying a commute that closes offers, and $16 a foot on 4,000 square feet is $64,000 a year against the cost of losing two senior candidates. Union Square's top ask of $115 matches Flatiron's, so paying up there is not paying above the best Flatiron floors.

How to settle this in one afternoon

Both submarkets tour in a single day and we hold floors in each. A sensible route covers four to six spaces and should include 900 Broadway, where a Flatiron-labeled partial ninth floor at $92 and a Union Square-labeled Suite 202 at $115 sit in the same building. Standing in both resolves the label question faster than a spreadsheet will.

Come with a test fit, or let us build one, so you compare usable space rather than rentable square feet, because loss factor moves floor by floor and the cheaper ask does not always deliver the cheaper desk. Get each landlord's position on free rent, improvement dollars and term before you fall for a floor. We represent tenants only.