Nice. It’ll be interesting to go into the “tallest observation deck in the city” and see a building directly beside you that’s taller. Well, until 418 11th and Tower Fifth get built.
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I attended the NYU Schack capital markets conference where Larry Silverstein spoke. He mentioned multiple times that he is determined to get this thing built. He hinted that there are several large tenants swirling and that he is very confident he could fill the 3M SF of space. He then said that he expects construction to start in 2024 and for the building to deliver in 2029.
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Horrendous timeline but at least he expects to get it done.
I was encouraged by his confidence in getting the thing leased up. Otherwise it will never happen.
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Fingers crossed!
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It seems to me the standard market rules of supply & demand no longer apply in this new world economy. The amount of vacant commercial space in NYC is far more than what is reported in the industry media.
The term is ‘shadow inventory’ and my guess the vacancy rate is 3X what is officially reported.
All speculation, and anecdotal evidence offered me from an industry insider: What exactly the ‘facts’ are is anyones guess. The point is - there is a massive amount of vacant commercial space in the NY metro as of now. Good for Larry being so optimistic about this new building getting “leased Up” - gotta love that optimism. 
The issue is that class A office space from before the 90’s just isn’t competitive with new construction. Big companies with the money to burn will take half the space in a new building that they had in an older one because they are shiny and good looking to new hires who are probably hybrid work now.
Its worth the higher price per sq ft because of the societal shift in office function/necessity.
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Is that really the case though? Old office space can be renovated to offer most modern accommodations. ESB is a good example. I’ve been to several offices in that building that are beautiful and modern (with the exception of window size).
I just don’t think most companies are willing to pay twice the price for half the space. Otherwise, we would’ve seen this tower get built already.
From the Post regarding a recent lease at 2 MW…
Gives me hope for 2 getting constructed, but Midtown is where the action is right now.
2 WTC might more easily get built if it went the hybrid route of 175 Park Ave/Grand Hyatt, but with even more hotel/residential. ~1.5M sf base, 1M resi on top might get this thing going easier.
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Well even at the present moment, the land use study for 5 WTC only mentioned 2 WTC as being mixed-use commercial, with offices (2.2 million sqft), retail (57K sqft), and a hotel (600K sqft), not any residential usage. I believe once usage/function goes outside of the allowed zoning, that the zoning has to be amended, which always takes a long time as hotels are still considered commercial zoning, but residential is obviously residential zoning.
The program if anything is actually extremely similar to 175 Park Ave, just slightly bigger.
Companies moving from/in Midtown normally tend to stay in Midtown, but mostly to already newly built buildings as opposed to those waiting to be built, as is evident with Two Manhattan West. The same can’t really be said for Lower Manhattan, since a number of companies have moved to Midtown and numerous office to residential conversion projects have taken off there. That’s why Amex should make the deal to move to 2 WTC because it’s right there next to their current HQs at Brookfield Place and there are no other buildings currently at the stage of construction that have the space they are intending to look for/move to as 2 WTCs foundations are already built.
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Is AMEX in the market for new space? Not sure if I missed an article somewhere
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They are. They’re a good candidate for 2 WTC because they’re downtown.
That would be great news if they snapped up space at 2, hopefully they go the office+ hotel route.
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You might think that 2023 won’t be another year without any hope for 2WTC with all these rumors, but we’ve been here before. If Larry want’s this complete in his lifetime he better change his gameplan.
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Getting this built is literally what I pray for every night
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Maybe it seems counterintuitive but that is precisely what is happening in the office market right now. Companies want their workers to return to the office and attract the top talent. Older buildings without amenities (even renovated ones) in locations that are subprime (think 3rd Ave) are simply not competitive in this market. As nice as some ESB offices might be, that building will never compete for the premier tenants in the city.
Companies are certainly willing to pay twice the price for half the space just like you said - it’s the dynamic we have been seeing these past couple years.
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Anyone know the occupancy rate for all the WTC complex buildings that currently exist? If they haven’t been able to even fill up One Word Trade yet, then how will they get backers for even more office space?
One World Trade Center has been mostly full for a while now, the same is true of the rest of the complex
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The entire WTC campus is 95% leased as a numeric figure to back mcart’s statement, so one of the buildings not being “fully” leased doesnt really matter if the entire campus basically is almost 100% leased.
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