Step Into My Office: Taking a Closer Look at NYC’s Office Landscape

The demand for traditional office environments is shifting, leading to significant impacts on vacancy rates, lease structures and development activity. As companies are looking for ways to right-size their portfolios and office spaces, the market's current outlook is showing some improvement. Office attendance is now closer to ⁠pre-pandemic levels⁠, and some companies have found the right formula for increasing leasing rates. In the first episode of Step Into My Office, CPE’s new quarterly podcast series, Associate Editor Olivia Bunescu delves into the current office market trends across New York with Nick Berger, director of commercial leasing at The Moinian Group. Berger shares some of the company’s leasing strategies as it adapts to changing tenants’ needs and ⁠hybrid work models⁠. Here’s what he discussed about: Major trends across NYC’s office landscape (01:04) Financial and legal services are leading the office market (02:05) “The office market is a bit better than the start of the pandemic, but it’s not quite where we want it to be.” (03:13) How have office lease terms changed across the office market? (04:34) Accommodating tenants’ expectations as part of leasing strategies (05:50) Competition for tenancy is an ongoing challenge in the office sector (07:23) Approaching leasing from a customer-centric standpoint (09:17) NYC’s scene is set up for improvement, but there’s a long way to go (11:35) How proximity to major transportation hubs and quality attracts tenants (12:55) The Moinian Group’s formula for portfolio growth and leasing success (14:38) Keeping a closer look at the Grand Central area (17:24) Embracing conversions as an expansion strategy (19:30) The inspiration behind The Moinian’s Mile (20:44) What’s next for NYC’s office scene? (22:52)