Three Tenants Renewed in Place: 767,000 Square Feet, Zero Moves

Google, Proskauer, and Greenberg Traurig all chose to stay and grow — and the buildings they stayed in are 93% to 100% leased.

Key Highlights

• Google is set to renew the entire 156,500-sf building at 1255 Pear Avenue, Mountain View, with owner The Sobrato Organization (Silicon Valley Business Journal via The Real Deal, Sept 15). Not yet signed as of publication; a 2024 report had Google walking away from the building.
• Proskauer Rose added roughly 60,000 sf (floors 31–32) at SJP's 11 Times Square, taking its footprint to about 478,000 sf with a coterminous 15-year extension of a lease that ran to 2031, plus future expansion options. Building occupancy now about 93%. C&W's August Midtown Class A direct asking rent: $95.01/sf.
• Greenberg Traurig signed a 10.5-year lease for 33,477 sf on the full 33rd floor of SL Green's One Vanderbilt, bringing its footprint to 133,365 sf and keeping the tower 100% leased. Building rents run $250 to well over $300/sf per SL Green.
• SL Green has signed 129 Manhattan office leases totaling 1,760,649 sf year to date; recent renewals include IMG Worldwide (90,202 sf) and Nearwater (37,563 sf).
• Combined footprint across the three commitments: about 767,900 sf (our arithmetic). Rents for all three are undisclosed.

The Signal

• The flight to quality has become a decision to stay in quality.
• Renewal-and-expand is the dominant large-tenant deal type in the two tightest office markets.
• Landlords with 93%–100% buildings are pricing renewals, not competing for them.

Three of the week's largest office commitments involved no relocation. That is a different market from 2022–2024, when the headline deals were tenants trading down in size or up in building.

Google recommitting to a full building it reportedly planned to leave is the West Coast tell. Sobrato held the asset through the uncertainty and now has a full-building credit tenant on a renewal in a submarket where peers are still shedding space.

Proskauer's 15-year extension from a 2031 expiry is a 20-year total commitment to one tower. Law firms are the deepest bid in Midtown, and they are paying for expansion options rather than shopping the market.

One Vanderbilt at 100% leased with $250-plus rents means Greenberg's expansion was negotiated from a position of scarcity. The tenant grew because the building had one floor left, not because the landlord needed the deal.

None of these prints a rent. What they print is term: 10.5 years, 15 years, and a full-building renewal. Term is what a lender underwrites, and trophy landlords are stacking it.

Implications

Owners of 90%-plus trophy and Class A product in Midtown and Silicon Valley should be pushing renewal economics — term, escalations, expansion premiums — rather than concessions. Tenants that wait until 12 months from expiry in these buildings will negotiate against a full building. Lenders can underwrite these towers on weighted-average lease term, which is now the differentiator between refinanceable and not.