Midtown vs FiDi: Office Space Compared

The gap is $53.50 a foot, and it decides more than the compass does

Our Midtown median is $125 per square foot per year and our FiDi median $71.50, the $72 above rounded, a difference of $53.50 a foot, about 43% off the Midtown number. Against the $75 citywide median across our book, Midtown prints about 67% high while FiDi sits about 5% under it. On a 6,000 square foot floor that submarket premium is $321,000 a year, far more than any round on free rent and improvement allowance will hand back.

The spread inside each market no longer dwarfs the spread between them. Midtown runs $79 to $130 per square foot and FiDi $60 to $115, ranges of $51 and $55 against a $53.50 gap between the medians, so these two submarkets now separate about as much as the floors inside either one of them. Set 520 Madison Avenue, 7,092 square feet at $125 and about $73,875 a month, against 32 Old Slip, 6,997 square feet at $64 and about $37,317: ninety-five square feet apart, just under double in rent. Address and condition still move a rent hard, but here the compass moves it too.

A size effect underneath the medians works against Midtown rather than for it. Two of our four Midtown listings are entire floors against four partials downtown, and large blocks usually price at a per-foot discount: 1700 Broadway, 13,266 square feet, is the cheapest floor in our Midtown book at $79. The gap holds with the size mix pulling against it, so treat $53.50 as a floor rather than a ceiling.

What we hold in each, and which team can actually fit

Midtown spans 7,092 to 19,097 square feet, about 41 to 109 desks at the 175 square feet per person we plan against. FiDi spans 2,624 to 6,997 square feet, about 15 to 40 desks. The ranges never overlap. They meet and stop, an accident of this month's availability and a very clean dividing line while it holds.

Sorting a requirement is therefore automatic. Teams of 15 to 40 belong downtown, where 45 Broadway at 2,624 square feet suits a company well under twenty. Teams of 45 and up belong uptown, where 277 Park Avenue at 19,097 square feet seats a company past a hundred. Anyone at the seam should tour both, since rentable square footage is not usable square footage and loss factors vary enough that two floors of the same advertised size seat different headcounts. A test fit resolves that in a week.

Getting there, and getting your next twenty hires there

Midtown transit, in the words of our own submarket notes, is nearly every line, with Grand Central and Penn within reach. FiDi is 4/5, 2/3, R/W, 1, J/Z at Fulton and Wall, plus PATH at the WTC Oculus. Both are excellent, and neither decides a lease on its own.

The asymmetry is directional rather than a matter of quality. Two commuter terminals within walking distance mean staff arriving from outside the five boroughs walk the last leg instead of transferring onto a subway, twenty or thirty minutes a day each. The Oculus does that job for New Jersey. Poll where your people actually live before you tour, and weight the answer toward the hires ahead of you rather than the roster you have, since a candidate holding two offers counts transfers silently. Commute geography breaks ties, though at $53.50 a foot the money now speaks before it does.

Our recommendation, by tenant type

• Companies of 15 to 40 people: FiDi, and we will not hedge that. Three of the four floors sit under 7,000 square feet, and in Midtown the premium buys space you do not need before it buys the address.
• Companies of 45 to 109 people: Midtown by elimination, since our downtown book stops at 6,997 square feet and 40 desks.
• Staff arriving from outside the city: Midtown, on Grand Central and Penn, unless they sit concentrated in New Jersey, where the Oculus wins.
• Client-facing businesses that win work in the room: either one. A high floor at 4 World Trade Center at $115 does the same job as a Madison Avenue floor at $125.
• Budget-led teams under forty: 45 Broadway at $60 and 32 Old Slip at $64 are the cheapest per-foot numbers here. Start there and make Midtown prove itself.

Someone should still pay for the expensive floor, and we will say who. The $61 a foot between 520 Madison Avenue at $125 and 32 Old Slip at $64 is roughly $427,000 a year on 7,000 square feet. Pay it when the office is a sales instrument, or when a full floor with room to grow spares you a second move inside three years. It is a poor trade for a team that meets nobody and knows its headcount.

The practical next step

One afternoon covers both. Four to six floors across Midtown and FiDi fit into half a day, and seeing them back to back is the only reliable way to feel that size gap in a room rather than on a plan. Tour the largest floor in each market first, because big plates recalibrate the eye.

Put the same questions to both landlords so the proposals arrive comparable: how the escalation is structured, whether electric and cleaning sit inside the rent, the improvement allowance and free rent on offer, and whether a good guy guarantee is expected. Every number here is an asking rent, where a negotiation opens rather than where it lands. We represent tenants only, we hold four floors in each of these submarkets, and we will run both sets of terms with you on one spreadsheet.