Midtown vs Hudson Yards: Office Space Compared

The $75 gap, and the floor that sets it

Our four Midtown floors ask $79 to $130 per square foot per year, median $125 on the three that carry a published number. Hudson Yards holds one floor, the partial 53rd at 66 Hudson Boulevard, asking $200. That is $75 per foot between the medians, 37% cheaper looking down from Hudson Yards and a 60% premium looking up from Midtown. Against the $75 citywide median across our 49 floors, Midtown runs 67% over and Hudson Yards 167% over.

This is the closest comparison Hudson Yards has anywhere on our book, and the two ranges still never touch. The dearest Midtown floor asks $130, seventy dollars a foot below the only Hudson Yards number we can quote.

Before the numbers get any further: one floor is not a market. Midtown reads as Manhattan's traditional corporate core with the deepest supply of full-floor space, priced across a $51 range because size and condition vary from floor to floor. Hudson Yards, the recently built district over the West Side rail yards, is represented here by one partial floor in The Spiral, with no published description of its condition. Two or three more floors in the district would turn $200 into a range worth comparing. Today it is one ask.

What we hold in each, and what the month actually costs

Midtown spans 7,092 to 19,097 square feet, roughly 41 to 109 desks at the 175 square feet per person we plan against. Hudson Yards is 10,517 square feet, about 60 desks.

• 1700 Broadway, entire 26th floor: 13,266 square feet at $79, about $87,335 a month, roughly 76 desks.
• 520 Madison Avenue, partial 21st floor: 7,092 square feet at $125, about $73,875 a month, roughly 41 desks.
• 277 Park Avenue, partial 40th floor: 19,097 square feet at $130, about $206,884 a month, roughly 109 desks.
• 45 West 45th Street, entire 10th floor: 8,230 square feet, asking rent on request.
• 66 Hudson Boulevard, partial 53rd floor: 10,517 square feet at $200, about $175,283 a month, roughly 60 desks.

Two of those lines carry the argument. 1700 Broadway's entire 26th is 2,749 square feet larger than the Spiral floor and costs about $87,948 a month less, which is to say you could rent it twice and still spend less. At the other end, 277 Park's partial 40th costs more by the month at $206,884, and seats 49 more people while doing it.

Per desk the four sort cleanly: about $1,149 at 1700 Broadway, $1,802 at 520 Madison, $1,898 at 277 Park and $2,921 in Hudson Yards. That last figure is what a Hudson Yards address costs per employee per month, and it is the number to put in front of whoever signs the check.

Getting there, and getting your people there

We publish nearly every line for Midtown, with Grand Central and Penn within reach, and 7 at 34th Street Hudson Yards, A/C/E and LIRR at Penn for Hudson Yards. That is the whole of what we will claim about either commute.

Read those two strings side by side and the difference is coverage against concentration. Midtown reaches both terminals, which is the one advantage a premium cannot buy back later and the reason large companies keep paying for the district. Hudson Yards has one subway line landing inside it and leans on Penn for the rest, so the walk in from most of Manhattan runs longer than the map suggests. Walk both at nine in the morning before either goes on a lease.

Where we come down, by tenant type

We take a position: most tenants touring both should sign in Midtown, and we say that knowing the fee is smaller.

• Teams of 41 to 109 who want choice: Midtown. Four floors across a $51 range, sizes at both ends, and a median that survived being drawn from more than one building.
• A firm of roughly 60 for which the building is part of the pitch, that wants a high floor in the newest office district in Manhattan and will use it to recruit: Hudson Yards is defensible at about $2,921 a desk a month, provided someone can name what the address earns.
• Anyone needing under 40 desks or more than 110: neither, on today's book. Bryant Park, Grand Central and Penn Plaza sit next to Midtown and we will show floors in all three the same week.

The case for paying up is real when clients, investors and candidates come to you. It collapses when they do not, and paying $200 a foot for space nobody visits is the costliest habit we talk tenants out of.

How to settle it in one afternoon

Both are tourable the same day and we hold floors in each, so the schedule is ours to build. Book them in one block rather than a week apart, because memory flatters whichever floor you saw last.

Bring the headcount you expect 36 months out and test fit the two floors that survive it. Ask both landlords the same questions in writing: how the floor was measured and what the loss factor is, whether electric and cleaning sit inside the rent, how much free rent and improvement allowance are available, what the escalation compounds against, and what security and good guy guarantee they want. On the Spiral floor add condition, delivery date and the work letter, since nothing on that is published.

We represent tenants only, never landlords. Send the headcount and the target occupancy date and we will build the afternoon.