Office Space $75 to $100 per Sq Ft in FiDi

What the $75 to $100 band buys in FiDi right now

FiDi carries four available floors on our book: one inside this band, two under it, one well above.

• 17 State Street, partial 26th floor: 6,606 square feet at $79 per square foot per year, about $43,490 a month, roughly 38 desks at 175 square feet per person, a prebuilt with views on our record, which affects the calendar more than the rent.

The floors on either side price the decision. Under the band sits 32 Old Slip's partial 32nd, 6,997 feet at $64, about $37,317 a month, furnished, roughly $6,170 cheaper on nearly 400 more feet. 45 Broadway's partial 12th is smaller, 2,624 feet at $60 and $13,120 a month for 15 desks. Above it, 4 World Trade Center's partial 44th asks $115 on 5,023 feet, $48,137 a month, about $4,650 more for 1,583 fewer feet.

The monthly math, worked plainly

New York quotes office rent annually per rentable square foot, so an ask becomes a monthly number with one multiplication and one division. Take 6,606 square feet times $79 for $521,874 a year, divide by twelve, and you have $43,489.50, which we publish as about $43,490.

A dollar of asking rent on this floor costs $6,606 a year and $550 a month, so the band itself spans $41,288 to $55,050 a month at 6,606 feet. Per desk, $43,490 across 38 people is about $1,144; an open plan seating 47 brings it to $925, private offices at 29 to about $1,500.

One caution on that footage. You pay for rentable feet, which carry a loss factor for common areas, so the usable number you furnish is smaller. Get a test fit drawn.

What the asking rent does not include

The $43,490 is where occupancy cost starts. Five categories sit outside it, each priceable before signing.

• Electric is rarely inside base rent here: a submeter plus an administration factor, or a fixed inclusion of roughly $2 to $4 per square foot per year, which on this floor is $13,212 to $26,424 a year, $1,101 to $2,202 a month.
• Cleaning is sometimes in base rent and sometimes billed on top. Ask what nightly service covers, since pantries, interior glass and rubbish removal are carved out routinely.
• Real estate tax escalations run off a base year fixed in the lease: you pay a proportionate share of every increase above it, so a base struck against an under-assessed year costs money by year three.
• Operating expense escalations arrive as a pass-through over a base year or as a porter's wage formula, and they stack on the annual step in the base rent itself, commonly 2.5-3% a year.
• Buildout above the allowance surprises people. A prebuilt shrinks that number without zeroing it, since cabling, furniture and signage still cost money, and anything past the allowance is cash or gets amortized into rent.

At a 2.5-3% step, $79 reaches roughly $87 to $89 by the fifth year of a five year term. The published figure is the first entry in a schedule, not the rent.

What is actually negotiable at $79 a foot

Face rent moves least on a single well-priced floor, since the published ask is the comparable ownership expects to quote next. We build the gap between asking and taking rent out of the rest of the document.

• Free rent is what landlords part with most easily, since it costs a period of income rather than a permanently lower number on the rent roll. Take it at the front of the term.
• The improvement allowance is worth less on a finished floor than on raw space, though rarely nothing. Point it at furniture and cabling, with a work letter naming who files with the Department of Buildings.
• Term length is the currency the other concessions are bought with, since five years will not purchase what ten purchases. Trade added years for an expansion right or a fixed renewal.
• Escalation caps decide what year five costs. Fix the base rent step at a stated percentage rather than an index, cap the operating expense pass-through, and negotiate a fully assessed tax base year.
• The good guy guarantee is negotiable in all its parts: who signs, the notice owed before vacating, whether it burns off after clean payment, and how fast it releases after surrender.

How this band compares, and who it suits

The median asking rent across our New York book is $75 per square foot per year, and this floor asks $79, about 5% above it. FiDi's own median is $71.50 across the four floors we carry, a few dollars under the city, so this floor asks about 10% over its own submarket.

That premium buys the floor rather than the address: 32 Old Slip at $64 shares the same submarket and the same commute, 4/5, 2/3, R/W, 1 and J/Z at Fulton and Wall, PATH at the WTC Oculus. Fifteen dollars a foot buys the building and the floor.

The band suits a company of 30 to 45 people that wants to sign once and be working within weeks rather than run a 10-16 week construction schedule, and that accepts sitting above the citywide median for downtown transit and rents under Midtown South. Under twenty it suits poorly: FiDi's entry point is the 2,624 foot floor at 45 Broadway.