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New York City

New York City, like all of New York, is back.

"The quality of life here is greatly improved," Colliers ABR's Riguardi says. "The streets are cleaner and safer. The city runs really well now. If you couple that with its international flavor, it's one of the key international business cities in the world. It's become a tremendous place to draw labor. Companies are finding that they can really attract quality personnel in New York and in New York City in particular. What companies are telling me is that markets will always have ups and downs, but it's clear that for all of our working lives, New York City will be the center for international business. So they have to be here."

Indeed, the Big Apple continues to draw big facilities, such as NextVenue's headquarters move to Manhattan from New Jersey. The business-to-business communications company will create 300 jobs during the next two years.

"We are excited about moving our operations into downtown New York," says Nicholas Balletta, president and CEO of NextVenue. "With our 33,000-sq.-ft. (3,066-sq.-m.) facility in proximity to our Wall Street customers, we will be better able to serve the financial community's business-to-business communications needs." NextVenue is the largest U.S. producer of Internet-distributed electronic road shows, or virtual road shows, used by investment banks to market securities. The company also provides a variety of other services that take advantage of its experience in the capture, production and distribution of events for the financial community.

Boston-based Bonnercom, one of the largest and fastest-growing U.S. marketing companies, is adding 300 new jobs at its New York City location. "Bronnercom helps the nation's leading companies transform their businesses to meet the challenges and opportunities of today's Web-based economy," says company Chief Executive David Kenny. "As the business capital of the world, New York City attracts the nation's most successful ventures as well as incredibly talented people, making the city the ideal location for our continued worldwide expansion."

New York City is also the financial capital of the world, home to companies like Tradition (North America). The financial services firm, which specializes in the trading and brokerage of Eurodollars and associated derivative products, is investing $15.5 million in a 47,260-sq.-ft. (4,390-sq.-m.) facility at 75 Park Place. The expansion will create 200 jobs.

New York City, like many markets around the country, has no speculative office construction, says Riguardi. As a result, he says, the tight office market is forcing companies to either purchase or net-lease real estate and use their own funds to build or renovate properties. Colliers' recent clients include financial giants Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

Indeed, competition for high-end office space in New York City has become very intense.

"Few people can argue that New York (City) has had a resurgence and is now the world capital for multinational commerce," says Greg Lorberbaum, a managing principal with Staubach's New York City office. "The city is bustling on so many levels. But corporate tenants no longer consider New York for large blocks of space as they did before, due to the tremendous competition with e-commerce companies that have new public capital and are willing to pay top dollar and sign leases that generally are unacceptable to the corporate tenant that is well represented. What's replacing that general demand for corporate offices are satellite offices that generally are smaller and located in B-plus to A-minus buildings, rather than the top-tier buildings. Another reason for this, in addition to the competition with e-commerce clients, is the tremendous advances that have been made with telecommuting, videoconferencing and the Internet."

More and more, he explains, Manhattan is becoming a hotbed for e-commerce companies. "And there is also an outgrowth of spinoff from regular investment banks to investment groups that center on the dot-com community. The highest space, the A-class space in the $80-plus per sq. ft. ($862 per sq. m.) range, is almost all being committed to by financial-related dot-com companies and mutual funds."