Top 10 Office Owners in Manhattan

Manhattan has kept its hot streak going throughout 2018, despite a slight decrease in asking rents. Coworking and tech companies have become the borough’s largest tenants, bolstering demand for quality office space. Meanwhile, the biggest office landlords continue to control a large part of the market and ink the largest deals. Their portfolio comprises trophy assets largely concentrated in high-profile areas with matching prices.

This list highlights the metro’s top 10 private, REIT and institutional investor office owners, based on square footage, according to Yardi Matrix data. The total number includes only projects larger than 50,000 square feet that were completed as of November 2018.

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5. RXR Realty

The company’s Manhattan office portfolio encompasses a total of 13,488,358 square feet, while its portfolio also includes assets around the New York City MSA: Brooklyn, Long Island, New Jersey and White Plains, N.Y. At 2.3 million square feet, Starrett Lehigh Building is RXR Realty’s largest asset. It was built in 1931 on the site of a former freight terminal and underwent conversion to office in 2000, under the ownership of Shorenstein Properties. Coworking companies have a penchant for RXR-owned office assets, with Convene opening its largest location to date at 530 Fifth Ave. 

4. Tishman Speyer

Almost half of Tishman Speyer’s office portfolio is located in Manhattan, where it owns 19,221,683 square feet of space across 17 completed properties. Most of them, including the two largest assets, are located in the borough’s Plaza District. The upcoming The Spiral, a 65-story office building scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2022, will add more than 2.8 million square feet to the company’s total holdings. The asset will be part of the Hudson Yards mega-development. Its construction was backed by a $1.8 billion loan provided by Blackstone Mortgage Trust Inc.

3. Brookfield Properties

The local investor’s Manhattan office footprint comprises 23,233,602 square feet, while nationwide, it has more than 60.2 million square feet of office space under its ownership. Most of the properties are concentrated on the East Coast. The company is one of the top developers in the Northeast U.S. and currently has 2.2 million square feet under construction in Manhattan. Construction at One Manhattan West broke ground in 2015 and completion is scheduled for September this year. The property is part of the 7 million-square-foot, Manhattan West mixed-use development and has already added multiple well-established companies to its tenant roster, including accounting giant Ernst & Young,  Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and the National Hockey League.

2. Vornado Realty Trust

The real estate investment trust owns and manages 25,244,060 square feet of office space in Manhattan alone, with its national portfolio spanning across more than 30.8 million square feet. Its most recently topped property is 512W22, a 172,700-square-foot office building located in the borough’s Chelsea neighborhood and designed by COOKFOX Architects. Vornado also has a property in the pipeline scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2020. The 892,000-square-foot Moynian Train Hall will be a $1.6 billion redevelopment of the landmark James A. Farley Post Office, located across Penn Station.

1. SL Green Realty 

New York City’s largest office landlord has more than 27.4 million square feet of office space under its ownership, 25,266,060 of which are located in Manhattan. SL Green Realty also boasts high activity, having recently acquired another stake in a 1.7 million-square-foot office asset in the Plaza District. The company’s largest upcoming asset is One Vanderbilt, a Class A property scheduled for completion in November 2020. The 58-floor skyscraper will is take shape in the immediate vicinity of Grand Central Terminal.

Images courtesy of Yardi Matrix