World Trade Center now rivals Midtown’s prime corridors as leasing frenzy boosts asking rents

Twenty-five years since 9/11, asking rents for large blocks of space at the World Trade Center nearly rival those on Park and Sixth avenues, Midtown’s prime corridors, a Post survey found.

When Moody’s moves out of  7 World Trade Center at the end of 2027, Larry Silverstein expects to fetch rents of up to $140 per square foot for 700,000 square feet, said Jeremy Moss, the landlord’s executive vice-president for leasing.

The Moody’s availability “will be a great opportunity for us,” Moss said, citing “a 30% increase in our rents since the pandemic.”

Moody’s lease at 7 WTC started in the mid-$50s per square foot 20 years ago and rose over time to the $70s, barely half of what it might be worth today.

With downtown office rents averaging at least 25% below Midtown’s, even Britain’s King Charles and Queen Camilla, who visited the 9/11 Memorial this week, might be impressed that at Silverstein’s 3, 4 and 7 World Trade Center,  “a dozen leases signed in the last 12 months were all above $100 per foot,” Moss said.

Meanwhile, the Durst Organization, which owns 1 WTC with the Port Authority, is asking $160 per square foot for two penthouse floors at the top tower’s top. The ask on lower floors run from the mid-$80s to $90.

The increases came at a momentous time for the 16-acre site, where some doubters and detractors in government, media and real estate once fiercely opposed  commercial redevelopment. Underground work has begun on long-awaited 2 WTC, which Silverstein is building for American Express as its new headquarters. The Norman Foster-designed supertall will come out of the ground early next year.

The existing office towers, including 1 WTC , recently broke the 95% leased mark, compared with the Manhattan average of 85%  and a downtown average of 80%, as measured by brokerages and the Downtown Alliance.

CBRE superbroker Mary Ann Tighe, who represented Conde Nast in its breakthrough lease at 1 WTC and today reps Silverstein at 3 and 7 WTC, cited the site’s “magic combination that companies are seeking — new office construction sitting atop mass transit.” She noted that financial services, tech and law firms “have all grown and flourished at the Trade Center.”

Among them is law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which in a previously unreported expansion is adding   43,000 square feet at  3 WTC, bringing its total there  to 268,000 square feet. At 1 WTC, Energy Capital Partners, just expanded to 70,425 square feet after initially leasing just 6,173 square feet in 2017.

Other major Trade Center tenants include Carta and  Ameriprise at 1 WTC, Uber at 3 WTC, Spotify at 4 WTC, and Wilmer Hale at 7 WTC.

Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at NYU who’s long been a proponent of post-9/11 redevelopment,  said, “Simply put, the WTC demonstrates the power of New York City  to transform itself after a devastating attack.

“It has been the catalyst for the reinvention of lower Manhattan as a community filled with workers and residents who live in a 24-hour community with a multiplicity of media, tech and financial service firms.”