NYC Continues to Reinvent Itself

Spencer Levy, Americas head of research, moderated the discussion at CBRE’s Midtown offices.

NEW YORK CITY—“Maybe one of the things New York City does best is to reinvent itself,” CBRE vice chairman Michael Geoghagen said Wednesday at the firm’s quarterly media briefing on the New York market. Geoghagen and his CBRE colleagues—including vice chairmen Paul Amrich and Andrew Goldberg, among others—sounded the themes of renewal and newness throughout their discussions. Among other ways in which these themes were manifested, CBRE’s experts noted the TAMI sector’s prominence in an office market once dominated by financial firms, and the healthy fourth-quarter pre-leasing activity at projects such as Related Oxford’s Hudson Yards and Brookfield’s Manhattan West.

That’s the case even when—as Nicole LaRusso, director, research & analysis, tri-state region, pointed out—deliveries of new product pushed up the availability rate in Manhattan’s office submarkets. Overall, 2016 represented “a solid year” for Manhattan office, she said, although net absorption was below the 10-year average of 23.8 million square feet.