Manhattan office visitations continue to rebound from pandemic nightmare: survey

Manhattan office “visitations” — a measure of total office-tower use including for retail stores and by building employees — continued their robust rebound from the pandemic in November, according to the latest Placer.ai location data analyzed by the Real Estate Board of New York.The survey of 350 buildings found average visitations at 67% of 2019 levels — or 73% excluding Thanksgiving week.Not surprisingly, the highest level of office attendance was 79% in Class A+ locations, followed by 66% in Class A/A- locations and 64% in Classes B and C.Also not surprising, Midtown attendance averaged 71% compared with 57% downtown.REBNY vice-president of research Keith DeCoster said the results “echo flight-to-quality and geographic trends we’ve witnessed since beginning this report.”But not all landlords are as hung up on physical attendance as they once were, judging by the recent leasing boom we recently reported.For example, as per JLL, 2.7 million square feet of leasing in November brought the year’s total to 25.3 million square feet — more than in all of 2023, with December closings still to come....