2025 Was an ‘Impressive Year’ for Manhattan Office Leasing: Colliers
By Amanda Schiavo January 2, 2026 11:34 am
reprints
Yet again, the office market has had a great year in Manhattan.
Office leasing activity in the borough was strong during the fourth quarter of 2025 and robust throughout the year as a whole, representing a notable recovery in post-pandemic deals, according to the latest data from Colliers.
Manhattan saw a total of 11.9 million square feet of office space leased during the fourth quarter, a year-over-year increase from the 10.2 million square feet leased during the fourth quarter of 2024, Colliers found. For 2025 overall, Manhattan office leasing activity reached about 41.92 million square feet, a significant rise from the 33.3 million square feet leased during the previous year.
All told, the last three months of 2025 was Manhattan’s strongest single quarter of leasing velocity since the fourth quarter of 2019. Additionally, Manhattan ended 2025 with the lowest availability rate in five years: 13.9 percent during the fourth quarter.
“That is a remarkable end to 2025 and a watershed moment in Manhattan’s path towards recovery,” Frank Wallach, executive managing director of research and business development at Colliers, told Commercial Observer. “2024 was important because it re-established demand, and tenant demand was back to a normal, healthy level. With 2025 being just under 42 million square feet, that’s a very strong level of demand, and it was a notable increase in activity in almost every area of the market.”
Each segment of the borough performed well throughout 2025. Midtown saw 19.32 million square feet of office space leased during the year, representing the neighborhood’s highest year of leasing activity since 2018’s total of 21.1 million square feet. Midtown’s 2025 number was also a 0.7 percent increase from 2024’s total 19.19 million square feet of office space leased.
Leasing activity for Midtown South during the fourth quarter hit 4.43 million square feet, a rise of 30.9 percent from a year ago. And the Lower Manhattan market saw office leasing reach 2.16 million square feet, nearly quadrupling from the same quarter the previous year.
The top five leases of the fourth quarter of 2025 included Bloomberg renewing 496,000 square feet of space at 120 Park Avenue, Moody’s taking 460,000 square feet at 200 Liberty Street, Millennium Management renewing 438,000 square feet at 399 Park Avenue, the Office of the New York State Attorney General expanding to 378,438 square feet at 28 Liberty Street, and law firm Ropes & Gray extending its 376,903-square-foot lease at 1211 Avenue of the Americas.
Ropes & Gray signed a lease in November 2024 to relocate from its current office at 1211 Avenue of the Americas to RXR’s 1285 Avenue of the Americas in 2028, Commercial Observer previously reported. The firm recently signed a separate short-term extension at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in the meantime, according to Colliers.
If 2025 is any indication of what 2026 will look like, the post-pandemic recovery is likely to continue.
“The market is very well teed-up for 2026, with tightening supply and strong demand from an array of industries,” Wallach said. “Think of it like a three-way race between Midtown, Midtown South and Downtown. One is certainly ahead of the others, but they’re all moving in the same direction, and in the fourth quarter they all took very big leaps.”
Amanda Schiavo can be reached at aschiavo@commercialobserver.com.
