Office Leasing Activity in Manhattan Continues to Escalate

The pace of office leasing in Manhattan continues to pick up steam as the announcement of big block deals becomes more frequent once again. Over the past two months five lease signings for big block space were reported totaling just about 843,175 square feet. Leading the way was Amazon’s 259,000-square-foot expansion at 1440 Broadway, followed by the over 198,000-square-foot, 19-year relocation deal by telecommunications giant Verizon at Penn 2, finance firm Piper Sandler’s 16-year lease for 136,175 square feet at 1301 Avenue of the Americas, the 130,000-square-foot relocation deal at 31 West 52nd Street by real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, and law firm Latham & Watkins’ 12-year lease for 120,000 square feet at 1285 Avenue of the Americas. As activity continues to recover, September remains on trend with the announcement on the 16th of three larger deals, adding two more big block signings to the growing roster and a notable expansion:

• Scotiabank will be relocating and expanding from its current Lower Manhattan office at 250 Vesey Street to 660 Fifth Avenue (formerly 666 Fifth Avenue) in the Plaza District — both buildings are owned by Brookfield Property Partners. The new lease for 205,000 square feet spanning the 5th through 7th floors is an expansion of the 154,670-square-foot space the Toronto-based bank currently occupies. The 5th Avenue building completed a $400 million redevelopment in 2023, Brookfield acquiring the 99-year leasehold of the tower’s roughly 1.169 million-square-foot office component in 2018 for just over $1.286 billion. Scotiabank will be joining anchor tenant Citadel Enterprises in 504,000 square feet and Macquarie Group, which leased 221,764 square feet spread across 6 floors in 2022.
• Bank of New York (BNY) will be occupying 192,000 square feet at One World Trade Center under a sublease with publishing giant Condé Nast. Financial terms were not disclosed of the 4-year deal spanning four floors within the tower — the entire 22nd, 27th, 28th, and 32nd floors per Costar. The move comes as BONY plans to renovate its headquarters at nearby 250 Greenwich Street.
• Salesforce will be expanding its footprint by 71,000 square feet at the eponymously branded Salesforce Tower located at 1095 Avenue of the Americas but more widely known as 3 Bryant Park. According to online real estate platform Costar, the added space will be on the 39th and 40th floors under a 15-year term starting January 2026; while the 15-year renewal will kick in May 2029. The deal is notable since the San Francisco-based cloud computing giant recently “cut thousands of jobs due to artificial intelligence, but rising demand in the sector” has prompted decisions to expand. The “dual expansion and renewal” is increasing the firm’s space in the building to 311,000 square feet according to the press release by The Real Deal. Salesforce initially relocated to the tower in 2017 after securing a 210,496-square-foot sublease with sublandlord MetLife.

Source:  https://commercialobserver.com/2025/09/scotiabank-takes-205k-sf-brookfields-660-fifth-avenue/

Source:  https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2025/09/16/salesforce-expands-at-3-bryant-park/