Office Space for Lease in Herald Square

Everybody’s been to Herald Square. You just probably weren’t thinking about office space when you were there, because it’s Macy’s and shopping crowds and a square named for a newspaper that folded a hundred years ago. Look up past the street noise, though, and there’s a real office market that most tenants walk right under.

It’s also the best-value pocket in Midtown South at the moment, and that comes down to where it sits. Herald Square is the seam where three neighborhoods run into each other: Midtown South to the east, the Garment District just north, the Penn District a block west. All three are having a good year.

Herald Square catches the overflow from all of it. Midtown South averages about $86 a foot, though that average is really describing the glass towers over on Madison Square Park. Around 34th Street you’re in the same district, riding the same trains, and asking rents often sit in the $40s and $50s.

That gap is why tenants end up here. You get the Midtown South address, the country’s busiest transit hub underfoot, and a rent bill that would startle a team on Park Avenue South. Working out which building actually delivers on that is the part worth talking through, though the open listings are right here if you’d rather just browse.

Herald Square Office Market Overview

The short version of Herald Square in 2026 is that everything around it got expensive and it hasn’t fully caught up yet.

The wider market is running hot. Manhattan leased 22.8 million SF in the first half of the year, its strongest first half since 2002, and average asking rent climbed to $78.03 a foot, the highest it’s been since mid-2020 (Colliers, Q2 2026). Availability dropped to 13%, which the city hasn’t seen since 2020.

Midtown South is riding that harder than most. The district leased 3.0 million SF in the first quarter alone, its best opening quarter since 2019, with availability falling into the high teens (Newmark, 1Q26). Asking rents are sitting near record territory at roughly $86 to $88 a foot.

Herald Square feels that as pressure from three sides. Mostly it shows up as tenants who’ve been priced out of the towers east and west coming to shop the loft floors here instead.

Four Forces to Monitor

• The Penn District rebuild reset the whole west end. Vornado poured about $2.5 billion into PENN 1 and PENN 2, the two-tower, 4.4 million SF campus sitting on top of Penn Station. PENN 2 alone hit 90% leased by June 2026 at roughly $109 a foot, with Verizon, Universal Music Group, Veeva, and Altana all signing long deals (Vornado, June 2026). Herald Square is a block east of that, for a lot less money.
• The Broadway landlord upgraded, and it changed the pitch. Empire State Realty Trust owns the modernized run of Broadway buildings here, and in April 2026 it opened a rooftop lounge at 1333 Broadway, finishing off a shared amenity package across the portfolio (ESRT, April 2026). Smaller tenants can now get modern, amenitized space a block from Macy’s without paying trophy rent.
• Retail is coming back, and it lifts the offices with it. The 34th Street corridor trailed the rest of Manhattan coming out of the pandemic, but that’s turned around. Primark opened a 78,000 SF flagship at 150 West 34th in spring 2026, TJ Maxx signed 40,000 SF at Herald Towers, and Old Navy is relocating in (CoStar, 2026). A livelier street makes the office floors above it easier to fill.
• The value window is real, but it’s narrowing. Herald Square is the cheapest office in an increasingly expensive corner of the city, and Midtown South sublets dried up nearly a quarter over the past year (Colliers, Q2 2026). The cut-rate deals that defined 2023 are thinning out, so tenants shopping here mainly on price should know the discount won’t sit still.

What Does Office Space in Herald Square Actually Cost?

Less than almost anywhere else with a Midtown South zip code, which for a lot of tenants is the entire reason to be here.

The longer answer starts with the district average. Midtown South runs roughly $86 to $88 a foot (CBRE, June 2026; Newmark, 1Q26), but that number gets set by the AI and tech towers on Madison Square Park, a mile east and a different universe on price.

Herald Square is the Class B and loft end of the same district, so its floors ask well below that, frequently in the $40s and $50s. The modernized Broadway buildings and Nomad Tower go higher.

What you’re really deciding is how much building you need. Tenants who want a modern lobby, an amenity floor, and a name people recognize will find it in the Broadway portfolio or at Nomad Tower, and they’ll pay for it. Tenants who mainly need a good, light loft floor near great transit can spend a lot less.

It’s worth running your headcount through the office space calculator before touring anything, if only so you’re chasing the right footprint instead of the prettiest floor.

Class A and Modernized Space

There isn’t much true Class A inside Herald Square, and what exists sits at the top of the neighborhood. Nomad Tower at 1250 Broadway is the one genuine trophy tower, a 39-story glass building from the architects who did the Empire State Building.

Global Holdings repositioned it to LEED Platinum, with a private lounge, an amphitheater, and full floors looking out over the West Side. The tenant list runs to tech and data names like Varonis and Zillow.

Just south on Broadway, Empire State Realty Trust runs the modernized middle of the market. 1333 Broadway and 1350 Broadway have redone lobbies, elevators, and prebuilt suites, and in 2026 ESRT topped the run off with a rooftop lounge at 1333 that’s open to the whole Broadway portfolio.

They’re not trophy towers, but they’re a real step up from raw loft space and they price accordingly.

Telling a genuine trophy from a building that merely charges like one takes some doing, so the guide to what separates trophy buildings is worth a read, along with the list of the top Class A towers in Midtown.

Class B and Loft Space, Where Most Deals Happen

Most of what leases in Herald Square is loft, and the stock has real bones. These are early-1900s buildings with high ceilings, big windows, and open floor plates, the same light-industrial DNA that made the Garment District and the rest of Midtown South so desirable in the first place.

The “Class B” label is worth ignoring for a second. What you’re paying for on these floors is ceiling height, natural light, a usable plan, and a Herald Square address, not a letter an appraiser typed into a form. The guide to what Class A, B, and C actually mean explains how the grades work.

Two loft buildings on the same block will quote very different numbers, so it’s worth touring them yourself and treating the average with some suspicion. It’s the same loft stock that pulls creative and media tenants into SoHo and Chelsea, usually at higher rents than Herald Square.

Class C and Value Space

The deepest discounts sit in the older elevator buildings off the main corridor: the side streets, the upper floors over retail on 34th, and the loft stock above Koreatown on West 32nd. Small firms, early-stage startups, nonprofits, and back-office teams can still land a real deal up there, a block from some of the best transit in the city.

Two caveats. Nobody publishes a clean Class C number for Herald Square, so a landlord quoting one precise figure as settled fact is worth a second look. The cheap floors are also thinning as leasing spreads west from the towers, and the window is narrower than it was two years ago.

Tenants who want to go below Midtown South altogether tend to look Downtown or in the Financial District, where the same size floor costs less again. You give up Herald Square’s transit and its foot traffic to get there.

Concessions, Where the Real Money Hides

Concessions are where tenants leave the most on the table. They fight hard on the face rent, claw back a few dollars, then ignore the two levers that actually move the math: free rent and the build-out money.

The market’s tightening, so the giveaways are smaller than they were in 2023. There’s still real room below the trophy tier, though.

Roughly what recent deals have looked like on a five- or ten-year term, keeping in mind that shorter terms earn less and longer terms earn more:

Two things are worth settling first. Effective rent almost always lands well below the face rent once the free months are counted, which the breakdown of rising concessions walks through. A build-out allowance is also only as good as what it pays to build, so it helps to know who covers the build-out before anyone talks numbers.

If term length is the sticking point, the guide to three, five, and ten-year leases lays out the tradeoffs, and the notes on the savvy approach to lease clauses cover the fine print worth fighting for.

Who Leases in Herald Square?

Herald Square has always drawn a working, unglamorous mix, and that hasn’t changed. Fashion and showroom tenants trace back to the Garment District next door, media and design shops like the light and the loft floors, and retail runs the ground floors up and down 34th.

Small firms, startups, and back-office teams come for the rent and the transit. Finding your row below narrows the search before you tour a thing.

Herald Square is one of the more attainable corners of Midtown for a small team, and there’s no pretending the rest of the district is.

For anyone still weighing neighborhoods, the guide to the best NYC areas for small businesses is a good place to start. There’s also a walkthrough of trading a coworking membership for space of your own, which is a bigger jump than most teams expect.

The Buildings, and What You Get

Herald Square offers two things money can’t buy on Park Avenue: the country’s busiest transit hub a staircase away, and a street that never empties out. The new towers next door set the amenity bar, and the Broadway landlords answered by modernizing lobbies and stocking move-in-ready suites. The inventory breaks into three tiers.

Trophy, Nomad Tower. A glass tower with modern systems, a private lounge, an amphitheater, a fitness center, and full floors with West Side views. The one address here that competes with the towers to the east.

Modernized Class A and B, the ESRT Broadway run. Redone lobbies and elevators, a shared amenity package across 1333, 1350, and 1400 Broadway, a new rooftop at 1333, and prebuilt suites sized for small and midsize tenants.

Loft and value, the 34th Street core and Koreatown. Prewar character, high ceilings, big windows, attended lobbies, and a growing supply of built-out suites you can sign and occupy fast.

Buildings Worth Knowing

• 1250 Broadway (Nomad Tower): Global Holdings’ 39-story glass trophy tower at the northern edge, LEED Platinum, home to Varonis, Zillow, and TransPerfect, with a private lounge and an amphitheater. The neighborhood’s one true Class A address.
• 1333 Broadway: Empire State Realty Trust’s modernized Broadway building, now topped by a tenant rooftop lounge that opened in 2026, with prebuilt suites and full floors available.
• 1350 Broadway: ESRT’s modernized tower at 36th and Broadway, with prebuilt suites and a long roster of fashion, finance, and professional tenants.
• 1370 Broadway: a Garment District-edge loft building long associated with apparel and finance tenants.
• 100 West 33rd (Manhattan Mall): office floors above the mall, a natural fit for retail and media tenants who want to be on 34th.
• Empire State Building (350 Fifth Avenue): ESRT’s flagship two blocks east at 34th and Fifth, with a tenant lounge, conferencing, and the most recognizable address in the world.
• Herald Towers (50 West 34th): JEMB Realty’s mixed-use tower, anchored at street level by a new TJ Maxx.

See all Midtown South buildings, or filter live listings by size and price.

Who Owns These Buildings, and Why You Should Care

Who holds the keys matters about as much as which building you pick, since no two of these owners play the same game.

Empire State Realty Trust owns most of the Broadway corridor, including the flagship Empire State Building along with 1333, 1350, and 1400 Broadway. It’s a public REIT with a modernized, heavily amenitized portfolio and a track record of turnkey deals with small and midsize tenants, so the process tends to be polished.

Global Holdings owns Nomad Tower and runs it as the neighborhood’s trophy address. A block west, Vornado Realty Trust owns the entire Penn District, which is why rents on that side now start with a one.

Knowing which of these owners deals straight and which one grinds you on the last dollar is most of what a tenant broker is actually for, and it’s not information any listing site carries. The rundown of the biggest landlords in NYC lays out the wider field.

Getting There

Transit is the thing that sells this neighborhood. Herald Square sits on top of one of the densest transit knots in the country, and Penn Station is one block west.

For a team commuting in from the suburbs or the outer boroughs, almost nobody has a shorter door-to-desk. The commute calculator and everyone’s home address will settle that faster than an office-wide argument will.

The notes on the essentials to ask before leasing and the key terms to get into your offer are both worth reading before you tour.