Office Space for 30 People in Penn Plaza

Where the 5,250 square feet goes

Thirty people at 175 square feet each is a planning allowance rather than a measurement, and it holds because rooms, storage and circulation take more of the floor than the workstations do.

• Meeting rooms take the largest share: one seating the whole company, plus two or three for groups of four to six.
• Phone rooms at roughly one per eight to ten people, so three or four here. A floor of thirty fails on calls long before it fails on seats.
• A pantry with real seating, reception, storage, the IT closet and the circulation joining them, all of it billed at the desk rate.

The allowance moves both ways. Private offices for the leadership push past 175 quickly, since an enclosed room consumes floor an open bench shares, while sharing desks on a three-day week lands nearer 150. Below roughly 125 the meeting rooms go.

What 30 people cost here against the citywide number

The $52 median is the middle of three floors, two in one building on West 35th Street and one at 2 Penn Plaza, arithmetic about our book rather than a verdict on the district. On that basis 5,250 square feet runs $273,000 a year and $22,750 a month, $9,100 per person per year.

At the $75 median across everything we represent in New York, the same 5,250 feet costs $378,000 a year, $31,500 a month. Penn Plaza saves $105,000 a year on identical footage, close to 28%. The trade is address and finish rather than access, since 1/2/3, A/C/E, LIRR and NJ Transit all serve the district.

Rent is not the occupancy number. Electric adds $2 to $4 per square foot, another $10,500 to $21,000 a year here, with cleaning, after-hours HVAC and escalations behind it. Three months of free rent across a five-year term is worth roughly $13,000 a year against the 10th floor's number.

Room count, not desk count, decides the floor

A company of thirty belongs on one floor, and all three floors we hold here take thirty on a single level. Split across two part-floors and you pay twice for reception and pantry. The room program is the negotiation: one room seating the whole company, two or three for four to six, three or four phone rooms, a pantry the company can stand in.

Every foot quoted here is rentable, and rentable in New York folds in a share of lobbies, corridors and mechanical space no tenant lays out. At the usual 15-25% loss factor, 5,250 rentable feet leave 3,938 to 4,463 to draw in, so the honest allowance is 131 to 149 a person, and the 10th floor prices at $59 to $67 per usable foot, the 11th at $61 to $69.

Neither floor has a plan on file with us, so get the measurement standard in writing, ask for the drawing, and run a test fit before the letter of intent. Column positions and the window line decide whether those rooms fit.

Growing into it, and getting back out

Run the allowance at forty-five people, half again this headcount, and it asks for 7,875 square feet, which nothing on our Penn Plaza book reaches, since the larger floor stops at 6,100. The growth plan here is density or a second floor.

Forty-five on the 10th floor's 5,250 feet sit at 117 square feet each, which needs shared desks and a meeting room surrendered to workspace. The 11th floor's 6,100 feet give the same forty-five 136 feet each, tight but workable, and that is the argument for $26,433 a month over $21,875. The premium is $54,700 a year for 850 extra feet.

Buy the rest of the room in the lease rather than the rent: a right of first offer on identified space, an expansion option priced by a formula written now rather than left to market, a sublease right with consent not to be unreasonably withheld, and a good guy guarantee scoped to an orderly surrender. Direct deals here run five to seven years, since landlords amortize free rent and improvement money across the term, and our two floors sit one above the other, which makes the expansion ask specific.

What is on our book for 30 people in Penn Plaza

Two floors stacked in the same garment-district loft building two blocks from Penn Station and Moynihan, both on 1/2/3, A/C/E, LIRR and NJ Transit.

• 213 West 35th Street, 10th Floor. 5,250 square feet at $50, about $21,875 a month, rated at 30 desks. The footprint to the square foot, 175 feet a head with nothing spare, $729 per person per month. No amenities and no plan on our record, which points to a floor taken close to as-is.
• 213 West 35th Street, 11th Floor. 6,100 square feet at $52, about $26,433 a month, rated at 35 desks, with a terrace, a conference room and furniture, and we hold a walkthrough tour. Thirty people sit at 203 feet each, $881 a month per head, with five desks of headroom.

The 10th is the disciplined answer, the 11th ends the space conversation for two hiring cycles, and the $4,558 a month between them is the decision. Ask on tour whether the furniture stays and whether the terrace sits inside the area you pay rent on. Send us the hiring plan and we will test fit both.