Manhattan’s office market is firming up. The borough’s vacancy rate dropped to 16.5% in March 2025, down 110 basis points from a year earlier — one of the sharpest year-over-year declines among major U.S. markets and well below the national average of 19.9%. The improvement reflects a combination of return-to-office policies and sustained demand for high-end space, particularly from large financial, legal and tech tenants in prime Midtown office space.

Amazon just signed a 15-year, 330,000-square-foot lease at 10 Bryant Park — its fourth deal in the city in recent months — adding to a leasing spree that includes space at 237 Park, 5 Manhattan West and West 34th Street.

Average asking rents fell slightly year-over-year, down 3% to $69.03 per square foot from $71.30 last March, mirroring the previous 12-month decline. But, space is tightening: Just 1.5 million square feet of office is under construction (only 0.3% of the market), and the planned development pipeline remains thin at 2.4% of inventory as of March.

A major exception is Related and Oxford’s anticipated tower at 70 Hudson Yards, where Deloitte is reportedly set to anchor the 1.1-million-square-foot project with an 800,000-square-foot lease, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal in April. If it breaks ground as expected in June, it would mark the largest new ground-up office development launched in the U.S. since the pandemic.

Foot traffic is also trending upward: A recent Placer.ai report shows Manhattan office visits are just 11.4% below 2019 levels, which is the best performance of any major U.S. market. Miami ranks second (still down 17.3%), while national office use has flatlined around 54% since early 2023, according to Kastle’s Back-to-Work Barometer. Meanwhile, investor confidence appears to be rebounding with Manhattan office sales volume doubling year-over-year to roughly $2 billion in Q1 2025.

Read more about the Manhattan office market through Q1 2025 in the recent national office report by CommercialEdge.