World Trade Center & World Financial Center

The trophy towers here ask the highest rents in Lower Manhattan. The World Trade Center and World Financial Center submarket is where the neighborhood rebuilt its trophy towers after 2001, and the rent reflects it. One World Trade Center rises 1,792 feet, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, flanked by 3, 4, and 7 World Trade Center on the Silverstein campus, with the five César Pelli towers of Brookfield Place across West Street on the water. All in, that’s about 24 million square feet, close to 30 percent of the office space in Downtown Manhattan, by Cushman & Wakefield’s count.

What matters for your search is how little is open and what it costs. Savills put availability at the WTC and Brookfield Place at 10.6 percent in the third quarter of 2026, against 21.3 percent in the Financial District, and asking rents at $87.76 a foot, against $58.31. On a 5,000-square-foot office, that rent gap is worth about $147,000 a year. Cushman & Wakefield’s World Trade submarket took 69.7 percent of all Downtown leasing from January through September. So plan around a tight market: fewer options, less room to negotiate, and real competition for the good floors. Decide early whether the address is worth the premium, because you won’t have long to sit on a space once one you want comes up.

Office Space for Teams of 5 to 30 People

Many of our clients are teams of 5 to 30 people. The headlines here go to American Express taking all of 2 World Trade Center and to Moody’s 460,000 square feet at 200 Liberty Street, but a few buildings on and near the campus lease prebuilt suites and partial floors that a small team can use.

Plan on about 150 to 250 square feet per person, depending on how many private offices you want. That works out to roughly 750 to 1,250 square feet for 5 people, 2,250 to 3,750 for 15, and 4,500 to 7,500 for 30. Our office space calculator will give you a closer number before you tour.

Rents here run high for Downtown. Cushman & Wakefield’s third-quarter numbers put the World Trade submarket at $73.01 a foot across all classes, against $53.90 in Financial East a few blocks away. We’ve listed part of the 48th floor at One World Trade Center, 7,985 square feet, at about $71 a foot as of October 2026, and our 195 Broadway profile puts asks there around $70. At $70 a foot, a 2,500-square-foot office for about 12 people costs about $14,600 a month before electricity.

Ask about prebuilt suites. Landlords build them out ahead of time with offices, a conference room, and a kitchen, so you can sign and move in within weeks instead of waiting months for construction. Our One World Trade Center profile lists prebuilt options from about 5,000 square feet, and 101 Greenwich Street offers them too.

Buildings to start with:

• 101 Greenwich Street (at Rector Street): a 26-story building from 1927 that got a $75 million renovation in 2019, with floors of about 3,000 to 19,000 square feet and prebuilt options. Our profile lists space from under 500 square feet up.
• 22 Cortlandt Street (between Broadway and Church Street): a 34-story tower from 1973, renovated in 2019, across Church Street from the campus, with floor plates from about 3,000 square feet up to 37,000.
• 100 Church Street (at Barclay Street): a 20-story building from 1958 with very large floors of 43,000 to 64,000 square feet, where our profile shows space from about 2,400 square feet.
• 195 Broadway (former AT&T Building, between Broadway and Church Street): a landmarked 29-story building from 1916, managed by L&L Holding, with floors from about 6,000 square feet, so it suits teams of 30 and up.
• One World Trade Center (285 Fulton Street): our profile lists prebuilt suites of about 5,000 to 25,000 square feet. The part of the 48th floor we’ve listed, 7,985 square feet, would hold roughly 30 to 50 people.

For two to five people, a private office in a coworking space can cost less than a lease of your own. Our coworking page covers the options nearby.

Where the World Trade Center Fits in Downtown

Inside the Submarket

Think of this submarket as two neighborhoods that share a train station, split by West Street. Which side you land on changes what you pay.

• The WTC campus, east of West Street. The 16 acres the Port Authority owns, rebuilt by Silverstein and the Durst Organization into One, 3, 4, and 7 World Trade Center, with 2 WTC still to come. This is the trophy core and the priciest ground, sitting right on top of the Oculus.
• Brookfield Place and the World Financial Center, west of West Street. Five Pelli towers in Battery Park City on the Hudson, with the Winter Garden, the marina, and the best retail Downtown. Same trophy tier, a notch cheaper than the WTC towers.
• The eastern edge, toward Church Street and Broadway. Where the campus runs into the Financial District at 100 Church, 195 Broadway, and 101 Greenwich. Class A and B, and where the rent finally lets up. This is where a smaller or mid-size tenant can afford to be near the towers.
• Battery Park City itself. Mostly apartments, the ferry terminal, and parks. Almost no office to lease, but it’s the reason the area doesn’t empty out after work, which matters if you’re recruiting.

A trophy tower and a building on the eastern edge can be a five-minute walk apart and price out completely differently. Know which one you’re touring before you fall for it.

World Trade Center Office Market Overview

The old knock on Downtown, empty towers and cut-rate rent, still holds in parts of Lower Manhattan. It stopped being true in this pocket a while ago. Since the pandemic, tenants have paid up to be in the best buildings, and that demand hit this submarket harder than anywhere else Downtown. The result is a market that prices and behaves more like Midtown than like the rest of the neighborhood: full, expensive, and short on choices.

What that looks like in the numbers:

• Savills put the WTC campus and Brookfield Place together at $87.76 a foot in the third quarter of 2026, against $58.31 in the Financial District and $65.53 for Downtown as a whole. Cushman & Wakefield’s World Trade submarket averaged $73.01, with Class A at $81.25; the two firms count different buildings. You pay a steep premium for the campus, and the gap is wide.
• Savills put availability at 10.6 percent for the WTC and Brookfield Place, against 21.3 percent in the Financial District, and Cushman & Wakefield had the World Trade submarket at 15.7 percent vacant, against 21.0 percent for Downtown. That means far less to choose from here than a few blocks away.
• Downtown’s new leasing reached 4.5 million square feet from January through September, up 63.2 percent from a year earlier and its best nine months since 2019, per Cushman & Wakefield. The World Trade submarket took 69.7 percent of it, about 3.2 million square feet.
• The demand reached all of Manhattan. Colliers counted 32.86 million square feet of leasing through September, the most for that stretch since 2000, and availability fell to 12.4 percent. Cushman & Wakefield put the Manhattan average asking rent at $74.37 a foot.

(Savills, Cushman & Wakefield, and Colliers, third quarter of 2026. Full sourcing at the bottom of the page.)

Four Forces to Monitor

• Space is tight, so move faster than you think you need to. At 10.6 percent available across the WTC and Brookfield Place (Savills, third quarter), you can’t sit on a deal for a quarter and expect it to still be there. The rest of Downtown gives you time; this submarket doesn’t. Start your search early and be ready to commit when the right floor comes up.
• The Amex deal is tightening things further. American Express committed in February 2026 to take all of 2 World Trade Center, the last tower on the campus, a 55-story Foster + Partners building Silverstein Properties is putting up on Port Authority land. Silverstein broke ground on July 9, 2026, and CBRE lists the tower as fully leased for delivery in 2031. A commitment that size firms up pricing across the campus and pulls concessions in. Waiting for a better deal here is a losing bet.
• You pay Midtown rents, so make sure you need what they buy. Savills’ $87.76 average for the WTC and Brookfield Place is trophy pricing, above its $86.96 Midtown average and far above the $65.53 Downtown average. That premium buys three things: the address, the transit, and the amenities. If you’re client-facing or fighting for talent, those can pay for themselves. If they’re not central to how you work, you’re overpaying, and the value is a few blocks east in the Financial District.
• The neighborhood works after 5 p.m. now, which helps hiring. Lower Manhattan’s residential population is past 75,000, with 400-plus restaurants and 2 million square feet of new retail. The Oculus, the Perelman Performing Arts Center, the 9/11 Memorial, and the Brookfield Place waterfront make it a real place to spend a day rather than a district that clears out at night. If your team pictures Downtown as dead after work, that view is a decade old, and it shows up in whether people want to come in.

How Much Does World Trade Center Office Space Cost?

More than anywhere else Downtown, and the answer depends on which complex and which floor. Anyone who gives you a single number for the WTC is guessing.

The headline figures: Savills put the WTC and Brookfield Place at $87.76 a foot in the third quarter of 2026, against $65.53 for Downtown as a whole and $71.46 for Downtown Class A. Cushman & Wakefield’s World Trade submarket averaged $73.01, with Class A at $81.25. Either way, the top of this market costs well over the Downtown average. The premium buys you the tower, the views, and the address, so the question worth answering is whether your business needs them.

Before you tour, get two things straight: how much space you need, and whether a trophy address earns its keep for you. Client-facing finance, big law, and flagship media usually justify it. Plenty of good companies don’t, and they do better on the eastern edge or in the Financial District, where they get most of the location for a lot less rent. Size your requirement first with our Office Space Calculator so you’re not touring floors you can’t use or afford.

One World Trade Center and the Silverstein Towers

This is the trophy core, and the tenant roster shows it. One World Trade Center, leased and managed by the Durst Organization for the Port Authority, is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 1,792 feet, 3.5 million square feet across 94 column-free floors. Condé Nast anchors two dozen of them, alongside Moody’s, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Spotify, and Uber. Tenants get One World Commons, the 64th-floor amenity center, and a direct line into the Oculus. Standard floors have quoted around $75 to $85 a foot direct; the high floors ask well past $100. If you need a name-brand address for clients or recruits, this is it, and you’ll pay for it.

3 World Trade Center, at 175 Greenwich, is Silverstein’s 80-story tower, home to McKinsey, GroupM, and Hudson River Trading. 4 World Trade Center (150 Greenwich) is 72 stories, split between the Port Authority, city agencies, and a large Spotify footprint. 7 World Trade Center, the first tower rebuilt on the site back in 2006, is still amenity-rich, with a park out front and The Studio at 7 WTC on the 10th floor. One move that tells you something about this market: Moody’s signed in December 2025 to leave 7 WTC for 200 Liberty Street at Brookfield Place, the kind of trophy-to-trophy shuffle that keeps the whole submarket tight even when one building opens up.

2 World Trade Center is the last piece. Silverstein’s Amex-anchored Foster + Partners tower will add landscaped terraces to the campus when it opens around 2031. You can’t lease it now, but it tells you the trophy market Downtown isn’t going anywhere. If you’re weighing whether a real trophy building is worth the premium over standard Class A, our piece on how trophy buildings set themselves apart in NYC is a useful gut-check.

The towers draw a predictable mix: financial services firms that want the address, technology and startup companies after One WTC’s media-and-tech crowd, and law firms that need trophy floors for clients and hiring.

Brookfield Place and the World Financial Center

Across West Street, Brookfield Place has been the cheaper way into trophy space: in Savills’ fourth-quarter 2025 report, the last to price the two separately, it asked $85.32 a foot against $110.35 for the WTC towers. The five César Pelli towers, 200 and 225 Liberty plus 200, 250, and 300 Vesey, hold more than 8.5 million square feet of office and retail. Olympia & York built them in the 1980s; Brookfield gut-renovated and rebranded the complex in 2014. The Winter Garden, a 45,000-square-foot glass pavilion, anchors it, with the marina, Le District, Hudson Eats, and Saks, Hermès, and Burberry on the retail side. For amenities, nothing else Downtown comes close.

The tenants are blue-chip finance and media: American Express (which owns 49 percent of 200 Vesey and fills most of it), Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, BNY Mellon, RBC Capital Markets, Nomura, Commerzbank, Santander, the College Board, and Brookfield Asset Management’s own headquarters at 250 Vesey. The big recent deal was Moody’s signing for 460,000 square feet at 200 Liberty in December 2025, and RBC expanded by 54,217 square feet at 200 Vesey in the third quarter of 2026, per CBRE. If you want trophy quality, water views, and a real neighborhood without paying the very top of the WTC range, Brookfield is the trade, and you’ll usually find a bit more give on concessions here than in the towers.

The Eastern Edge and Where the Value Is

Not everything here asks $100. East along Church Street and Broadway, the campus fades into the Financial District and the rent comes down with it. 100 Church, 101 Greenwich, and 195 Broadway (the landmarked old AT&T building, which Broadway shares with FiDi) run Class A and B in the mid-$50s to low $70s, with availability in the 15 to 19 percent range. This is where a smaller or mid-size firm can sit two minutes from the Oculus without a trophy rent, and where you’ll find suites sized for a real headcount instead of a full floor. If you’re sorting through tiers, our explainer on what makes a building Class A, B, or C is worth a read, and the Financial District a few blocks over is the natural next stop for value.

Lease Concessions and Effective Rent

Concessions are where the real cost of a lease gets decided, and this is the one part of Downtown where landlords aren’t giving much away. The trophy towers have far less space open than the rest of Downtown, so the big free-rent packages you’ll see elsewhere don’t show up here. CBRE’s third-quarter report puts Downtown free rent at 17 months on average, up from 12 in 2019, with build-out allowances of $142 a foot, for new leases over 25,000 square feet signed since 2023. In the WTC and Brookfield core, expect terms below that. On the eastern edge, you get closer to standard Downtown deals.

The ranges below are typical for recent deals on a 7-to-10-year term. Shorter terms get you less; a long trophy lease can get you more.

Two things to get right before you sign:

• The rent you’ll really pay is the effective rent after free months and build-out money, not the face rate on the quote, and on a trophy deal that difference is large. Our concessions explainer shows how to run the math.
• A build-out allowance only helps if it covers what your space needs, so know who pays for an office build-out and pick a lease term that fits before you negotiate. Smaller tenants on the edge should also budget for a security deposit and ask whether a Good Guy Guarantee is available.

Which Businesses Lease at the World Trade Center?

The tenant list here is the story of how Downtown changed. It used to be banks and insurers and little else. One World Trade Center now bills itself as home to the city’s biggest tech, advertising, and media community, with Condé Nast, Spotify, and Uber sharing the campus with the finance names. The split is easy to read: global finance and big law take Brookfield Place and the WTC towers for the address, while media, tech, and consulting take One WTC and 3 WTC for the address and the talent pool. The table below matches your industry to the buildings worth touring, so you spend your time on the right floors.

Vertical landing pages: Financial Services, Law Firm Offices, Startup & Tech Space, Coworking Space, Retail / Stores, Sublet Space.

Top Office Buildings and Amenities at the World Trade Center

In this submarket, the amenities are a big part of what you’re paying for, and the bar is the highest Downtown. At trophy rents, the price covers tenant-only amenity floors, waterfront dining, an observation deck, and the Oculus transit hub before you even get to the office. What to expect, by tier:

• WTC trophy tier (One, 3, 4, 7 WTC): Tenant-only amenity centers (One World Commons on the 64th floor, The Studio at 7 WTC), column-free floors, 360-degree views, One World Observatory, LEED certification across the campus, and direct access to the Oculus with PATH and a dozen subway lines. When 2 WTC opens, it adds more than an acre of gardens.
• Brookfield Place waterfront tier: The Winter Garden atrium, North Cove Marina, Hudson Eats and Le District, Saks and Hermès retail, tenant fitness and conferencing, and the Hudson River esplanade at the door. The strongest amenity package Downtown.
• Eastern-edge Class A and B: Renovated lobbies, on-site or nearby fitness, modernized systems, and a growing supply of prebuilt spec suites for smaller tenants who want the location without the trophy rent.

Featured Buildings

• One World Trade Center: Port Authority and Durst’s 1,792-foot icon, 3.5M SF, anchored by Condé Nast, with One World Commons and the largest TAMI tenant base in NYC.
• 3 World Trade Center (175 Greenwich): Silverstein’s 80-story tower, home to McKinsey, GroupM, and Hudson River Trading.
• 4 World Trade Center (150 Greenwich): Silverstein’s 72-story tower mixing Spotify, the Port Authority, and city agencies.
• 7 World Trade Center: The first tower rebuilt on the site (2006), amenity-rich, with the Silverstein Family Park and The Studio at 7 WTC.
• 2 World Trade Center (delivering ~2031): Silverstein’s Foster + Partners tower, fully leased to American Express; groundbreaking held July 9, 2026.
• Brookfield Place (200/225 Liberty, 200/250/300 Vesey): Brookfield’s five-tower Pelli waterfront complex, 8.5M SF, with the Winter Garden and blue-chip finance tenants.
• 200 West Street: The Goldman Sachs headquarters on the western edge, owner-occupied Class A.
• 100 Church, 195 Broadway, 101 Greenwich: Eastern-edge Class A and B addresses where the campus meets the Financial District and rents step down.

Browse every Downtown building or filter active listings by size and price. If you’re outgrowing a coworking space and eyeing your first full-floor lease, our guide on moving from coworking to your own office covers that jump.

Major Office Landlords at the World Trade Center

Who owns your building matters here more than in most submarkets, because ownership sits in a handful of hands and each one negotiates differently. Silverstein Properties developed and holds most of the campus. The Durst Organization runs One WTC for the Port Authority, which owns the ground under all 16 acres. Brookfield Properties owns all of Brookfield Place. Goldman Sachs and American Express sit in towers they own. A broker who works this market knows which of these landlords funds build-outs generously and which holds firm, and on a lease this size, that knowledge is worth real money.

Transportation and Commuting to the World Trade Center

Transit is this submarket’s biggest practical advantage, and the Oculus made it the best-connected spot Downtown. The WTC Transportation Hub ties PATH service to New Jersey together with the subway, and the West Concourse runs under West Street to Brookfield Place and the Battery Park City Ferry Terminal, so you can cross the whole complex without going outside. For a lot of the metro area, getting here is a one-seat ride, which is a real factor if your staff commutes from Jersey or the suburbs. Check your team’s specific commute with our Commute Calculator.