Brooklyn Office Leasing Spikes 91 Percent Between Third and Fourth Quarter
By Mark Hallum January 12, 2023 3:45 pm
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Apparently, Brooklyn is not a bridge too far for some tenants.
Brooklyn office leasing in the fourth quarter of 2022 was 30 percent above the borough’s quarterly average for the last five years and 91 percent higher than the previous quarter, according to a new report from CBRE.
But it’s still no Manhattan. Only 404,000 square feet of space in Brooklyn was leased in the last three months of 2022, mostly in Downtown Brooklyn, compared to Manhattan’s 5.2 million square feet leased over the same period.
While Manhattan clearly had more square footage signed, its office market limped toward the end of the year, with leasing activity down 44.2 percent from the third and fourth quarters of 2022 and down 49 percent year-over-year, according to a Lee & Associates report released earlier this week.
Meanwhile, the availability rate in Brooklyn decreased to 20.7 percent from the third quarter, according to the CBRE (CBRE) report, while Lee & Associates recorded a “stubbornly high” 18 percent vacancy rate in Manhattan, compared to 14 percent the prior quarter.
Some of the defining leases in Brooklyn included Boston Consulting Group’s deal for 67,355 square feet at 55 Water Street, General Services Administration taking 54,132 square feet at 540 Fulton Street, Altana AI with 20,874 square feet at 25 Kent Street, Overtime with 16,873 square feet at 20 Jay Street, and Architecture Research Office with 9,876 square feet at 1 Willoughby Square.
In the fourth quarter, the average asking rents in Brooklyn was $48.91 per square foot, which was almost unchanged from the third quarter but up 5 percent year-over-year, according to CBRE. Downtown Brooklyn’s asking rent rose 3 percent to $56.48 per square foot.
Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.
