A law firm’s sizable renewal and expansion by Rockefeller Center highlighted a strong January for the Manhattan office market, according to the latest report from Colliers.
Mayer Brown renewed its lease and expanded to more than 330,000 square feet at Rockefeller Group’s 1221 Sixth Ave. for the largest office lease of the month, the report says. The law firm currently occupies about 257,000 square feet at the building, according to commercial real estate database CoStar, indicating that it added roughly 75,000 square feet to its footprint.
A representative for the Rockefeller Group declined to comment on the deal, and a representative for Mayer Brown did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Overall, companies leased about 3.6 million square feet of office space in Manhattan to kick off 2025, up significantly month over month and year over year, as well as 36% higher than the 10-year monthly average of about 2.7 million square feet, according to the Colliers report. The borough’s availability rate dropped to 16.2%, while its average asking rent dipped slightly to $73.28 per square foot. The total amount of available space in the borough was about 87.6 million square feet.
January’s other major leases included KnitWell Group renewing and expanding to about 246,000 square feet at 7 Times Square, A&E Television Networks renewing its lease for about 152,000 square feet at 227 E. 45th St. and Stonepeak and Visa each taking about 150,000 square feet at 30 Hudson Yards.
Midtown was home to the Mayer Brown, KnitWell and A&E leases, and the neighborhood saw about 1.8 million square feet of activity in January overall, down from December but up almost 40% year over year. Its availability rate dropped to 14.9%, the first time since November 2020 it was less than 15%, while average asking rent was $78 per square foot, down year over year but up slightly month over month.
Firms leased about 1.5 million square feet of space in Midtown South, highlighted by the Stonepeak and Visa deals. This was up significantly month over month and year over year, the report says. The neighborhood’s availability rate fell to 16.6%, while its average asking rent fell to $78.10 per square foot.
And downtown, companies leased about 305,000 square feet, up month over month but down year over year. The neighborhood’s major deals included Axsome Therapeutics expanding its sublease at 1 World Trade Center to 96,000 square feet and the College Board taking 41,000 square feet at 225 Liberty St. The availability rate dropped to 18.7%, while average asking rent stayed fairly flat at $57.32 per square foot.
