New York’s office market has a new high-water mark — the latest sign of the growing divide between struggling, outdated buildings and Manhattan’s high-demand towers.
Stefan Soloviev’s Soloviev Group signed a lease at 9 West 57th Street at $327.50 per square foot. That surpasses the previous record of $320 per foot, establishing a new high bar as these high triple-figure deals become more common.
“The price speaks for itself,” Soloviev said.
The tenant is a private international family office, Soloviev said. The 10-year deal covers 5,063 square feet on the northwest corner of 9 West’s 50th floor, which offers the best views of Central Park.
The previous record-holder was SL Green’s One Vanderbilt, which in 2022 signed a 9,871 square-foot deal on its highest office floor with the Canadian waste management company GFL Environmental.
Rents above $300 a foot are still extremely rare a decade after L&L Holdings first broke that mark in 2015 when Ken Griffin’s Citadel paid that price for the penthouse portion of its 200,000-square-foot space at 425 Park Avenue. But they are becoming more common.
Manhattan recorded one such lease last year when SL Green signed the infrastructure service provider Kyndryl to a $305 per square foot deal for 6,300 square feet at One Vanderbilt.
But the market could be headed more toward that direction. Deals for previous price barriers that were once thought to be exceptional — such as $100 and $200 a foot — are now much more commonplace.
New York saw a record 313 leases starting at $100 per square foot or more in 2025, up from 2024’s record of 212 leases, according to JLL’s annual report of top-of-market deals. There were 28 deals at $200 per square foot or higher, including six deals above $250.
Soloviev signed three of those $200-plus deals at 9 West 57th Street.
Manhattan’s average asking rent grew to $76 per square foot at the end of 2025, its highest level in five years but still below the peak set at the height of the market in 2019.
But New York is still in the midst of a K-shaped recovery, where a flight to quality has benefitted buildings already performing well and deepened the problems for struggling ones.
Nationwide, the CMBS office delinquency rate was a record-high 12.34 percent in January, according to Trepp. That was driven by two very large loans backing New York office buildings: Worldwide Plaza and One New York Plaza.
A CBRE team led by Howard Fiddle represented Soloviev in the 9 West deal. Newmark’s Howard Hersch negotiated on behalf of the tenant.
Read more
One Vanderbilt lease at $300+ psf may be city’s highest office rent ever
Soloviev fills 100K sf at 9 West 57th with investment firm
