Cushman & Wakefield Relocating to Paramount’s 31 West 52nd Street 

Cushman & Wakefield will be moving its New York offices next year, but it’s also sticking close to its home turf. 

The company will relocate to Paramount Group’s 31 West 52nd Street beginning in late 2026, taking 130,000 square feet across floors 11 through 15 of the 29-story tower for 15 years, Commercial Observer has learned. In conjunction with the move, C&W will also lead leasing at the 770,000-square-foot building. 

Its, ahem, “cushy” new digs are a mere two-minute stroll from the firm’s current location at Vornado Realty Trust’s 1290 Avenue of the Americas.

“Paramount welcomes Cushman & Wakefield to 31 West 52nd Street,” Albert Behler, chairman, CEO and president of Paramount Group, said in prepared remarks. “This significant commitment is a testament to the building’s many appealing attributes and another example of the New York office market’s resurgence.”

C&W has spent 17 years in its current space, and its new footprint will mirror the firm’s approach to its next chapter in being “modern, engaging and collaborative.”  

“1290 has been a terrific asset,” Todd Schwartz, Northeast regional president, told CO. “We’ve had so much opportunity and experienced so much growth here, and the move isn’t actually about the asset at all — it’s really about the floor plate and the footprint of our space. At 31 West 52nd Street we have five floors that are contiguous, with staircases running through them, and that will be more conducive to building a more collaborative workspace.” 

Ultimately, “every decision we make is based on our people and our customers,” Schwartz said. “It’s that simple.” 

Huey Lewis once said it was “Hip to be Square,” and C&W’s office choices are what’s fast becoming a veritable Cushman Corner. The firm had offices at 51 West 52nd Street for years stretching back to the 1990s, before moving to 1290 Avenue of the Americas in 2008 and now to 31 West 52nd Street. 

The firm considered some other assets but, after polling some of its employees, C&W knew it wanted to be in Midtown. Given the expansive space needs it had, 31 West 52nd Street ended up being a perfect fit. 

“We’ve been asking our people what’s important to them [in an office location] and where they want to be,” Schwartz said. “I can say, with 100 percent confidence, it’s here in Midtown. Our people wanted to be here — not Downtown, not Midtown South. And, quite frankly, there was a somewhat narrow band they wanted, from Third to Seventh Avenue, and Central Park down to 42nd Street, because the transportation hub here is so fabulous. Our people are in and out of the office, they’re running around and showing space, or meeting with clients. They need to be able to get around quickly and easily.” 

Its new space is vacant and the firm will now get to work with architecture firm Perkins+Will on its design and build out. 

“We have a great opportunity to redesign our space for the next 15 years and that’s really important to us,” Schwartz said. “Our CEO [Michelle MacKay] will be based in this facility, and she’s also going to have input in thinking about this really special space for the future. We put together focus groups so every part of the business was given an opportunity to talk about what’s important to them in the pre-design. At some point, somebody has to make the final decision, of course, but there’s a really thoughtful sourcing of information in saying, ‘OK, this is the kind of space we want.’”

C&W’s workplace innovation team, led by Rachel Casanova, will also work closely with Perkins+Wills and the firm’s project management team to bring its vision to fruition. 

“This move exemplifies our firm’s broader workplace strategy. The same forward-thinking, people-first solutions that we recommend to our clients, we’re implementing for our own teams in Manhattan,” Brian Ungles, president of project and development services for the Americas, said. 

As such, the new space is also being designed with the firm’s customers in mind. 

“Everything we’re doing is ultimately grounded in this idea that our space needs to be a great place for our people and for our clients, who we certainly hope will be visiting and with us in that space a lot,” Schwartz said. “We want to be able to show them that we’ve designed our space thoughtfully — and we want to be a role model in that regard.” 

Once the move is underway, C&W employees will have access to a range of top-tier amenities at Paramount’s 1301 Avenue of the Americas across the street, from wellness to event spaces to private boardrooms to a town hall to a full bar and restaurant at the flashy — and members-only — Paramount Club. 

C&W’s 130,000-square-foot lease makes it part of a trend of surging Manhattan office leasing activity. A whopping 8.4 million square feet of space was leased in the second quarter alone — with Class A accounting for roughly 7 million square feet of that total — reaching an activity level not seen since the fourth quarter of 2019. Further, 2025 is shaping up to be the strongest leasing year in six years, according to a C&W MarketBeat report. 

“The New York market is so important in commercial real estate, and it’s so important to our firm,” Schwartz said. “It’s our largest office by far from a people revenue perspective, and it’s a hub for people to flow through. We have board meetings here, we have our global management team here, and people are constantly coming through to meet with customers — often from other markets. We’re committed to New York, it’s been an anchor for our 108 years as a company, and being able to have this space —when it’s finished and ready and designed and open — to be like a shining star, an example of what a great modern workplace looks like, is super important to us.”

As for this new workplace’s owner, Paramount just last week reported its Q2 earnings, with leasing also a bright spot in comparison to the previous quarter. 

Cathy Cunningham can be reached at ccunningham@commercialobserver.com.