New York City's Office Market is Rebounding

New York, NY, September 8, 2025-"The New York City office market is recovering from its pandemic debacle faster than any other in the U.S. Nothing speaks more to the turnaround than the gleaming new office tower built for JPMorgan Chase,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

“After more than six years of development, the bank is preparing to move thousands of employees into its new, 2.5-million-square-foot headquarters at 270 Park Ave. later this month before its October grand opening. The 60-story building is a roughly $3 billion bet that New York is definitively back after years of uncertainty about whether it would maintain its leadership in business and finance.

“‘It’s a very big deal,’ said the New York power broker Kathryn Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City. ‘It’s a statement about the future of New York City.’

“As the city rallies, the rest of the country is slowly clawing its way back. New York City office visits, or foot traffic, exceeded 2019 levels for the first time in July, according to Placer.ai, a location-analytics firm. It was the only major city to hit that milestone. Office visits nationally were down 22% in July compared with the same month in 2019, the firm found.

“The city’s office rebound is driven by business executives who are looking to put the days of remote work behind them.

“To lure employees back to the workplace, more companies are chasing the high-end buildings that Manhattan is known for. Some two million square feet of New York City’s trophy office space has been leased in the first half of 2025, surging ahead of other U.S. markets, according to the real-estate data firm CoStar.

“The premier leases are going fast: Deloitte committed to 800,000 square feet at a Hudson Yards office tower on the West Side before construction began.

“Some of the strictest return-to-office mandates are coming from New York’s bedrock industry: finance. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are among the few companies that have ordered their employees back to the office five days a week.

“The city’s tech and law firms, including many that are small and midsize, have been signing new leases. In the first quarter, leasing volume accelerated in the Manhattan office market to 12.2 million square feet, the strongest quarter since 2019, according to the real-estate firm Savills.

“At the same time, the city’s office glut is showing signs of easing, thanks to a sharp reduction in new supply in recent years and a pickup in the number of offices converting to residential buildings.”