Rob Speyer

One could make the case that the success of commercial real estate in 2025 was a triumph of financing. So much of the banking world had been frozen in a post-COVID inflationary dead zone that, when banks and financial institutions decided that the water was more or less fine, years of pent-up demand was suddenly unleashed.

Furthermore, one could argue it was Tishman Speyer that helped reignite the commercial mortgage-backed securities market almost single-handedly when it refinanced Rockefeller Center to the tune of $3.5 billion in late 2024, and proceeded to do the same thing at Hudson Yards’ Spiral office tower for $2.8 billion in January 2025.

Since then, the hits have kept coming: a $385 million refinance at 300 Park Avenue; the $105 million purchase of 148 Lafayette Street in SoHo; and countless units of residential, life sciences and office under construction in the many far-flung corners of the globe where Tishman Speyer has planted its flag. (By its current count, the firm has approximately $65 billion in assets under management in 40 different markets.)

But, in a New York City where there hasn’t been a ton of new office construction in the past few years, Rob Speyer dazzled everybody in the business last year with the opening of 270 Park Avenue, the multibillion-dollar J.P. Morgan Chase tower on the site of the old Union Carbide Building.

“Jamie [Dimon’s] decision to go forward with that building in the depths of COVID — when everyone else thought office was dead — was like the ultimate validation of both office and New York City,” Speyer told Commercial Observer back in January 2026, referring to the J.P. Morgan chairman. “And most people should have listened to him more closely, because one of the key lessons as an executive is separating signal from noise. That was a signal.

“And, so, now the building’s completed. It’s the best office building in the world — and I say that as a real subject matter expert.”

There are a lot of great offices out there. This list is a testament to that. But let’s just say we’re not about to second-guess Rob Speyer’s professional judgment.