Avison Young: Office Leasing Slows in Manhattan Amid COVID-19

NEW YORK CITY — Office leasing in Manhattan has slowed amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, according to a first-quarter 2020 office leasing report by Toronto-based brokerage firm Avison Young. According to the report, Manhattan saw approximately 7 million square feet of new leasing activity in the first quarter of the year, down from 8.4 million year-over-year. The firm reported that leasing volume was down more than 39 percent by the end of March, compared to March 2019. Additionally, eight office construction projects larger than 150,000 square feet have been halted as nonessential construction, and completion dates for those projects have been pushed back indefinitely. Several of those projects, including SL Green’s 1.6 million-square-foot One Vanderbilt in Midtown, have sizable prelease commitments from tenants including TD Bank and law firm Greenberg Traurig.