Office Space for 10 People in Flatiron

Where 175 square feet a person comes from

The allowance is not a desk measurement. A workstation and its chair take a fraction of it, and the rest disappears into the conference room, the huddle room, the phone booths, the pantry, storage and circulation. Shared rooms are why the per-head number sits so high: a company of ten needs nearly the conference room a company of eighteen needs, spread across fewer people.

• Plan above 175 when founders want private offices, when clients and candidates visit often enough to need somewhere to wait, or when the work needs a bench or sample storage.
• Plan below 175 when attendance is staggered and desks are shared, or when a pre-built floor already carries the meeting rooms and you are only adding desks.

What ten desks cost here, and against the city

The one matching floor asks $92 per square foot per year, so 1,750 square feet is $161,000 annually, about $13,417 a month, roughly $1,342 a desk. At the $72 citywide median across our book the same footprint is $126,000 a year, about $10,500 a month and $1,050 a desk, so Flatiron over the middle of our inventory costs $35,000 a year, close to $2,917 every month.

That $92 also sits above Flatiron itself, where the six floors we represent run $43 to $115 around a median of $72, or $10,500 a month on this footprint, the same figure as the city because Flatiron's median currently sits level with it.

Rent is not what leaves the account. Electric typically adds $2 to $4 per square foot per year, $3,500 to $7,000 here, and cleaning, after-hours HVAC and escalations sit on top of it. Free rent, an improvement allowance and a cap on the escalation move the effective number further than the headline does.

What the floor plan has to hold at ten

One conference room seating the whole company plus a visitor is not optional here, since the all-hands, the board call and the final round all land in it. A four-person huddle room takes what would otherwise hold that room all day, two phone booths keep the open plan quiet, and the pantry table doubles as overflow.

The 1,750 is rentable, and nobody walks rentable feet. Leases fold a share of lobbies, corridors, restrooms and mechanical space into what you pay for, so at the 15-25% loss factors ordinary in prewar loft stock, 1,750 rentable leaves roughly 1,313 to 1,488 usable, 131 to 149 square feet a head.

A team of ten fits on one floor anywhere in this submarket, so the choice is partial plate against full. A partial shares its corridor and restrooms and gives up the elevator lobby as a front door, and the full-floor premium rarely pays at this headcount unless clients come through. Check the demising line on tour, and look for a column where the conference room wants to be.

Fifteen people, and the lease that survives them

Ten becomes fifteen sooner than most plans allow, and fifteen at the same allowance is 2,625 square feet, $241,500 a year and about $20,125 a month at $92. That 50% jump lands mid-term, which is why size gets settled in the year you sign rather than the year you outgrow the floor.

• Term. Three years on a floor that already holds fifteen is the cleanest answer here. Longer terms buy more landlord money and earn it only when the two-year headcount is knowable.
• Expansion. Ask for a right of first offer on contiguous space rather than a fixed-price option; landlords grant the first far more readily and it costs nothing to hold.
• Sublease. Get consent written as not to be unreasonably withheld, with transfers to an affiliate exempt from it.
• Security. Expect a letter of credit and a good guy guarantee, and negotiate a burn-down after two clean years. The good guy is what lets founders hand back keys rather than carry the term.

What is on our book at this size in Flatiron

One floor matches: 900 Broadway [Partial 9th Floor], 2,940 square feet at $92, $270,480 a year and about $22,540 a month before electric. It is not a 1,750 square foot floor and we would rather say so. At our planning number it reads as about 17 desks, so ten people sit at 294 square feet a head and roughly $2,254 a desk, falling toward $1,326 once seventeen are on it. Hardwood floors, exposed ceilings, a Matterport walkthrough and a plan we hold.

The gap is the submarket rather than the floor. Flatiron availability starts at 2,940 square feet and runs to 10,562, about 17 to 60 desks, because this stock was cut in full plates. Next up are 3,960 square feet at $72 at 54 West 21st Street and 5,500 at $52 at 276 Fifth Avenue. Well-priced floors here move in weeks, so a team that can decide beats a team with a larger budget.