Anthony Malkin and Christina Chiu

Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT) officially became “New York or nowhere” in late 2025, when the real estate investment trust sold its final suburban asset — in Stamford, Conn. — for $64 million.

It had good reason to put its faith in New York City. ESRT successfully acquired 555-557 Broadway in early December in a $386 million deal with publishing house Scholastic, which remained in the SoHo building as a tenant. The REIT also secured a fourth-quarter lease expansion from Burlington Stores that brought the company’s footprint at 1400 Broadway to 206,392 square feet.

ESRT counted 1 million square feet of new or renewed commercial leases in 2025, down slightly from 1.3 million in 2024. The portfolio was 93.2 percent leased as of late March,  according to Anthony Malkin, and rents are below the $100-per-square-foot mark.

Malkin and Christina Chiu say they entered 2026 proud of their balance sheet, defined by $417 million worth of all-cash purchases in 2025, full ownership of its assets and, as of the end of quarter one, no debt maturities until the end of 2028.

The company continued to acquire a sizable slice of North Sixth Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in a deployment of capital that gave them control of more than 120,000 square feet along the popular retail corridor. Malkin compared the ecosystem of Manhattan’s West Village and SoHo to what he expects is the high-growth future of Williamsburg.

“If you had said to us 36 months ago, ‘What’s your appetite for retail in Brooklyn?’ our answer would have been ‘Zero,’ ” Malkin said. “The opportunity presented itself. We own a big piece of — and have our own ecosystem out there — on North Sixth Street. That’s totally rare.”

All of ESRT’s recent moves — from exiting the suburbs to purchasing the Scholastic Building — were dictated by its desire to generate more cash flow and higher rents. Malkin frames this approach as the company’s “shift to growth,” focusing on assets where rents reliably outweigh capital expenditure.

“I think it’s really powerful that we’ve been able to utilize our strong balance sheet to really shape-shift the portfolio,” Chiu said.