Penn Plaza vs Union Square: Office Space Compared

Two medians worth distrusting

The headline is a 41% gap, $52 against $88 per square foot per year. Against the $75 median across the 49 floors we represent citywide, Penn Plaza sits about 31% below and Union Square about 17% above, which is the whole story if you stop reading here.

Both figures are thinner than they look. Penn Plaza's three floors ask $50, $52 and $135, and that $135, a new prebuilt at 2 Penn Plaza, is the highest asking rent anywhere on our book. Union Square's median is the midpoint of exactly two numbers, $60 at 29 West 17th Street and $115 at 900 Broadway, because its third floor carries no published rent at all.

Price the floors instead. 213 West 35th Street's 11th, 6,100 square feet at $52, is about $26,433 a month for roughly 35 desks, listed with a terrace, a conference room and furniture, and we hold a walkthrough tour of it. 900 Broadway's Suite 202, 4,000 square feet at $115, is about $38,333 for roughly 23 desks, with a pantry, a conference room and hardwood floors.

That is 2,100 more square feet and twelve more desks in Penn Plaza for $11,900 less every month. Per desk, about $755 against $1,667, and $142,800 a year of difference on the total. Whatever Union Square is selling here needs to be worth that.

What each book holds, and who fits

Penn Plaza: three floors across two buildings, 5,070 to 6,100 square feet, roughly 29 to 35 desks. Union Square: three floors across three buildings, 2,500 to 13,754 square feet, roughly 14 to 79 desks, with nothing between 23 and 79. The bands hardly touch.

• 14 to 23 people: Union Square only. 29 West 17th Street's partial 7th floor, 2,500 square feet at $60 and about $12,500 a month, furnished, wired and plug and play on a sublease running through September 2027, or 900 Broadway's Suite 202 at $115. Penn Plaza's smallest floor holds 29 desks.
• 29 to 35: Penn Plaza only, all three floors. The 10th at 213 West 35th Street, 5,250 square feet at $50 and about $21,875 a month; the 11th, 6,100 at $52 and about $26,433; and 2 Penn Plaza's partial 17th, 5,070 at $135 and about $57,038, a new prebuilt with an executive office, three offices, a phone room, a conference room and open seating for 21 workstations.
• 36 to 78 people: neither market holds a floor, and we would rather write that sentence than talk a 50-person company into 35 desks.
• Around 79: Union Square's 836 Broadway, the entire 2nd floor at 13,754 square feet, the largest floor in this comparison and the one with no published rent. It has to be asked for rather than compared.

Getting there

Penn Plaza runs on 1/2/3, A/C/E, LIRR and NJ Transit. Union Square runs on 4/5/6, N/Q/R/W and the L, all at 14th Street. Not a single line appears on both lists, so this pair separates commutes cleanly.

LIRR and NJ Transit are the entries with hiring consequences. A company whose people board a train outside the city is buying something at Penn Plaza that no Union Square building can sell it, and it pays out twice a day for the length of the lease.

Union Square's set is the deeper one inside the city, three trunk lines and the L at a single station, which shortens the list of people who need a transfer to reach you. Write down where your last ten hires live before reading either rent column again.

Our recommendation, by tenant type

29 to 35 people with a commuter-rail workforce: Penn Plaza at 213 West 35th Street, and stop looking. The size fits, and $21,875 or $26,433 a month is the cheapest rent per desk in this comparison.

Under 20 people who need to be working next month: Union Square, at 29 West 17th Street. $12,500 a month, plug and play, on a sublease term through September 2027 that suits a company unable to forecast 2029 honestly. Penn Plaza has nothing that small and nothing that fast.

Twenty to twenty-three people who see clients weekly: 900 Broadway at $115 a foot, the most expensive footage either market offers apart from the 2 Penn Plaza prebuilt. The case for it is address and finish rather than value, so make that case out loud or do not pay it.

A team of 25 to 30 needing a finished floor immediately: 2 Penn Plaza's 17th, at $135 a foot, more per square foot than anything in Union Square. What you buy is the design, filing and construction sequence you skip. Where the timeline allows three or four months, the 10th floor at 213 West 35th reaches a comparable office for well under half the rent.

The practical next step

Six floors, and unlike most pairs on this site these two do not tour in one walk. Bracket them: Penn Plaza in the morning, Union Square after lunch, on the same day so the commute comparison means something.

Ask for a test fit at real headcount before the rent conversation starts. Everything quoted here is rentable footage, and at the 15-25% loss factors common in New York, 6,100 rentable square feet at 213 West 35th leave roughly 4,575 to 5,185 usable, turning $52 into about $61 to $69 per usable foot. Do the same to 900 Broadway's 4,000 feet and $115 becomes about $135 to $153.

Then negotiate the deal rather than the ask. Electric commonly adds $2 to $4 a foot, escalations run off a base year worth arguing over, and free rent, an improvement allowance, the letter of credit and the good guy guarantee move real cost more than the last dollar of face rent. A sublease trades allowance and term for speed and price; a direct deal buys the opposite. We represent tenants only, and the tours can be arranged this week.