Office Space for 20 People in Flatiron

Where the 175 square feet per person goes

The allowance is a planning number, not a desk measurement. A workstation and chair take closer to 45 or 50 feet, and the rest pays for what a desk cannot do: at 20 people, two or three enclosed meeting rooms, a couple of phone rooms, a pantry with somewhere to sit, and the aisles connecting them. Circulation alone absorbs a quarter to a third of a floor once the plan is drawn to code.

• Above 175, at 200 to 225 feet a head: teams that put principals in private offices, take confidential calls all day, or host clients on their own floor.
• Below 175, at 140 to 160: open-plan engineering and design groups with hybrid attendance and few visitors.

Designing to the low number is how a team ends up taking calls in the stairwell.

What 3,500 feet costs here, and elsewhere

Across the four Flatiron floors on our book in this size band, the median asking rent is $82 per square foot per year. At 3,500 square feet that is $287,000 annually, about $23,917 a month, before electricity (typically $2-4 per square foot) and buildout.

The same footprint at the $72 citywide median across our book costs $252,000 a year, about $21,000 a month, so Flatiron carries roughly a $35,000 annual premium at this headcount. Two things soften that. The median across all six Flatiron floors we represent is $72, not $82, because the plainer floors sit lower on the sheet. And asking rent is not taking rent: at this size we expect to convert part of the gap into free rent and improvement dollars rather than a lower face number.

What a floor at this headcount has to hold

One floor is the right answer at 20 people, and Flatiron is built for it: the loft plates off Fifth and Broadway are sized so one company takes the whole plate. Splitting the team across two half-floors duplicates the pantry and conference room and costs more than it saves.

Program the floor before signing: two rooms seating six to eight, a larger room only if the team runs regular all-hands, and two or three phone rooms, the element teams most often under-provide. A floor that cannot hold them without turning the open plan into a corridor is the wrong floor; a test fit proves it in a week.

Loss factor is where the per-person number quietly changes. Leases run on rentable feet, which include a share of lobbies, corridors and mechanical space, and usable area typically sits 15-25% lower, so 3,500 rentable feet is 2,625 to 2,975 usable and the real allowance is 130 to 150 feet a head.

Growing into it, and out of it

Thirty people is where this decision gets tested. At the same allowance that team needs about 5,250 rentable feet, 1,750 more than you started with and roughly $12,000 more a month at the $82 median. Most 20-person companies arrive there within two years, so the lease should answer that question now.

• A right of first offer on contiguous space costs nothing at the letter of intent, and it has teeth when the landlord already holds adjacent inventory: at 30 West 21st Street the penthouse and a 10,562 square foot block on the 9th and 10th floors are both available in the same building.
• A three-year term instead of five buys flexibility and pays for it in concessions: landlords fund free rent and allowance out of term length.
• A clean sublease clause is the recovery plan: consent not unreasonably withheld, affiliate assignment without consent, and little or no profit split.

What is on our book at this size in Flatiron

• 54 West 21st Street [Partial 4th Floor], 3,960 sq ft at $72, about $23,760 a month, sized for 23 people. The closest fit and the fastest to occupy: furnished, with pantry, conference room and phone booths.
• 900 Broadway [Partial 9th Floor], 2,940 sq ft at $92, about $22,540 a month, sized for 17. Hardwood floors and exposed ceilings, with a floor plan and a Matterport tour published, so the layout can be judged in advance.
• 276 Fifth Avenue [9th Floor], 5,500 sq ft at $52, about $23,833 a month, sized for 31. The rent lands within a hundred dollars of the 3,500 foot budget for a floor 57% larger, on the seam where Flatiron meets NoMad.
• 30 West 21st Street [Penthouse floor], 5,250 sq ft at $115, about $50,313 a month, sized for 30. Penthouse conditions are rare here and priced accordingly. This is the two-year version of a 20-person team.

We represent tenants only, so ask us which landlord will move, and how far. That order rarely matches the asking rents.