Class A Meet Plan B: How the Coronavirus Could Impact NYC’s Newly Built Office Space

In late 2019, New York’s office leasing market resembled a Louboutin sample sale with giant companies in a frenzy to drop cash on pricey new digs. Facebook inked a deal for 1.5 million square feet in the mega-development Hudson Yards while e-commerce giant Amazon turned around the next month and took 335,000 square feet nearby. That was, of course, before the coronavirus upended everything in the city, including its leasing market. And while the city’s real estate market is poised for an earlier return than others, falling in the second phase of a four-phase reopening plan, the city’s brokers could be looking at a much different office market than before. “People are going to be gun-shy,” said Timothy King, the managing partner at Brooklyn-based brokerage SVN | CPEX. “There’s going to be a reluctance to expand … This is going to scar people.” So what happens to the millions of square feet of new office space in the pipeline carrying asking rents of more than $100 per square foot? The rest of the 28-acre Hudson Yards with a price tag in the billions?

Read more via The Commercial Observer here.