{"id":4835,"date":"2025-09-18T17:17:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/blog\/?p=4835"},"modified":"2025-09-18T17:21:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:21:18","slug":"manhattan-becomes-first-us-office-market-to-surpass-pre-pandemic-attendance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/blog\/manhattan-becomes-first-us-office-market-to-surpass-pre-pandemic-attendance\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan Office Attendance Edges Past Pre-Pandemic Levels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manhattan, N.Y., became the first major U.S. office market to climb back above its pre-pandemic attendance baseline. In July, office visits in New York City overall ran 1.3% higher than the same month in 2019, according to Placer.ai<\/a> \u2014 a milestone the city had been inching toward for months.<\/p>\n

A big part of the push has come from finance and law, industries that were among the first to bring people back in person. More than half of Fortune 100 companies had full-time office mandates in place last quarter, compared with only 5% a year ago.<\/p>\n

Other markets are making progress, too. Miami nearly matched its July 2019 attendance, missing by just 0.1%. Atlanta and Dallas are still about 20% below pre-pandemic levels, but doing better than the national average. And on a year-over-year basis, San Francisco led with a 21.6% jump in office visits, followed by Houston (19.1%) and Washington, D.C. (17%).<\/p>\n

Momentum has also carried over to Manhattan\u2019s leasing and investment side. Nearly 3.7 million square feet of office space was leased in August \u2014 up more than a third from last year and 20% above July \u2014 according to Bisnow<\/a>. And RXR\u2019s $1.1 billion deal for 590 Madison Avenue added weight to the story, marking one of the year\u2019s biggest trophy trades.<\/p>\n

Fundamentals back it up. Vacancy in Manhattan sat at 15.2% in July, down 130 basis points from a year earlier and still one of the tightest rates among major markets, Yardi Research reported. Asking rents averaged $67.97 per square foot \u2014 the highest in the country despite slipping 4.7% year-over-year.<\/p>\n

Big tenants have helped, too. Amazon has committed to nearly 1.5 million square feet in Manhattan since last fall,<\/a> including 330,000 square feet at 452 Fifth Avenue earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, the gap hasn\u2019t closed as quickly. Office utilization in July was still 21.8% below 2019 levels, and vacancy hit 19.4%, Yardi said. Average listing rents nationally rose 3.3% year-over-year to $32.72 per square foot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manhattan, N.Y., became the first major U.S. office market to climb back above its pre-pandemic attendance baseline. In July, office visits in New York City overall ran 1.3% higher than the same month in 2019, according to Placer.ai \u2014 a milestone the city had been inching toward for months. A big part of the push has come from finance and law, industries that were among the first to bring people back in person. More than half of Fortune 100 companies had full-time office mandates in place last quarter, compared with only 5% a year ago. Other markets are making progress,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3163,"featured_media":4836,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-office-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nManhattan Office Market First in U.S. to Surpass Pre-Pandemic Attendance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In July 2025, Manhattan became the first U.S. office market to exceed pre-pandemic attendance, with vacancy and leasing trends showing renewed strength.I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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