The Meatpacking District office market is booming, as Google expands and new tech tenants beckon.
In the next five years, around 600,000 square feet of new commercial space will open in the neighborhood, at least half of which will be offices, according to the Meatpacking Business Improvement District. That would mark a 6 percent increase over total office inventory there today, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Any increase would help, as the vacancy rate in the area stands at a tiny 1.8 percent, compared to 9 percent in Manhattan as a whole, according to Cushman, Crain’s reported.
The growth is being fueled by the neighborhood’s largest tenant by far, tech colossus Google, which recently reorganized itself into a holding company called Alphabet. The company occupies nearly 40 percent of the office space in Meatpacking, a total of 2 million square feet in four contiguous buildings.
“Companies want the opportunity to recruit the best young talent today, who are looking for the kind of workplace that the meatpacking district offers,” Stuart Romanoff, whose family firm Romanoff Equities, is building a 120,000-square-foot mixed use building at 860 Washington Street, along with Property Group Partners, told Crain’s. [Crain’s] – Ariel Stulberg