Why Manhattan Tenants Are Signing Leases in Unbuilt Office Towers
In most market cycles, leasing space in a building that hasn’t yet been constructed is considered a significant act of commitment — one reserved for the largest, most established tenants with the leverage and patience to negotiate long timelines and complex pre-construction terms.
That calculation is changing. As the New York Post reported earlier this year, Manhattan’s most competitive tenants are increasingly committing to unbuilt office towers — not because they prefer the uncertainty, but because the alternative is worse.
The Logic Behind Pre-Construction Commitments
When the supply of top-tier, move-in-ready office space shrinks fast enough, forward-looking tenants shift their timeline. The math is straightforward: if the best available space today is already spoken for, and the next wave of high-quality inventory won’t be delivered for 18 to 24 months, signing a pre-construction lease stops being a risk and starts being a strategy.
Brandon Charnas has seen this reasoning play out directly in the Manhattan market. The tenants willing to commit early to unbuilt space are typically the ones with a clear long-term vision for their footprint — companies that know where they’re going, have the funding to back it up, and are unwilling to settle for second-tier space while they wait for the right building to become available.
The alternative — holding out for existing inventory — increasingly means choosing from what everyone else has already passed on.
Certainty Has Become the Premium Product
What’s notable about the pre-construction leasing trend is what it reveals about the priorities of the market’s most sophisticated tenants. In a competitive environment, the thing being priced and competed for most aggressively isn’t square footage or rent — it’s certainty.
Certainty that the space will be delivered on time. Certainty that the building will be built to the specifications the tenant needs. Certainty that a competitor won’t walk through the same space tomorrow and submit a stronger offer.
Brandon Charnas notes that this dynamic is reshaping how landlords and their advisors position pre-construction opportunities. The pitch to a prospective tenant is no longer just about what the building will eventually offer — it’s about locking in access to something that won’t be available at any price once the market catches up to the supply.
What This Signals About the Broader Market
Pre-construction leasing at scale is a leading indicator, not a lagging one. When tenants start committing to space that doesn’t yet exist, it reflects a fundamental conviction that existing options won’t be sufficient — and that the cost of waiting will exceed the cost of acting early under uncertainty.
For landlords with development pipelines, the message is clear: the demand is there, and the tenants who are willing to commit earliest are often the ones with the strongest credit, the clearest growth trajectory, and the most desirable long-term profiles. Reaching those tenants — before the building is finished, before the brochure is printed, before the broker tours begin — is where the market is being won right now.
Current Real Estate Advisors, under the leadership of Brandon Charnas, works with exactly the kind of tenants and institutional owners navigating this moment. The Manhattan office market continues to surprise. The professionals who see what’s coming before it arrives are the ones structuring the most consequential assignments.