FiDi is seeing its best midyear lease numbers in nearly 20 years

By Steve Cuozzo | New York Post

FiDi landlords are celebrating the area’s biggest midyear office leasing total since 2000 — about 3.8 million square feet, according to new data from CBRE reported by the New York City Downtown Alliance.

Among the highlights:

• Relocations to FiDi from uptown accounted for 23% of all second-quarter leasing, including four large moves from Midtown South.
• The bulk of the leasing involved two giant deals at 55 Water St., including Justworks’ move from the Starrett-Lehigh Building to 270,000 square feet at 55 Water.
• Overall average asking rent increased slightly — by 0.2%, to $63.40 per square foot, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The discount over Midtown’s average of $76.56 was one driver of the downtown boom.
• The downtown office surge was accompanied by impressive increases in tourism, new-apartment creation and major restaurant openings that included Crown Shy and The Fulton.