A lease last year proved the staying power of midtown Manhattan as an office market heavyweight.
When Boston-based law firm Ropes & Gray, which has about doubled in size of attorneys in the past decade, decided to relocate its current New York office at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, it didn't opt to move to other neighborhoods such as Hudson Yards.
Instead, it signed a 20-year deal spanning more than 535,000 square feet when factoring in expansion options in its planned move a few blocks north to 1285 Avenue of the Americas, owned by RXR Realty, which rebranded as RXR in 2022.
While 1285 Avenue of the Americas has the ability to accommodate large, global corporate tenants, Ropes & Gray's deal came with some challenges for RXR to overcome.
For one, Ropes & Gray required a significant increase in office space, with CoStar data showing it has occupied a little over 280,000 square feet at its current location. RXR said it offered the law firm a "contiguous, scalable space" that ensured Ropes & Gray's "long-term needs were met." The lease also required detailed space planning because of the handover of a large portion of space that was vacated by another large law firm, Paul Weiss, which expanded and relocated to a space about 200,000 square feet larger than its previous one, RXR said.
The lease comes as the brokerage Savills recently reported legal sector leasing reached a record-breaking 10.2 million square feet in the United States last year, a 31.4% jump from the 2023 level.
Ropes & Gray's lease has been selected by real estate professionals familiar with the market as the winner of the 2025 CoStar Impact Awards lease of the year in New York.
About the deal: Ropes & Gray has more than 500 lawyers in New York among its global total of more than 1,600. Its future home features not only "the perfect law firm floor plate," with modern infrastructure and systems, but also an "open and airy environment conducive to collaboration," RXR said, adding that the "highly efficient" floor plates will allow law firms to ensure "that both private offices and shared spaces foster connectivity."
What the judges said: Josh Wein, managing director at RAL Cos. & Affiliates, said the lease "exemplifies significant impact, showcasing the resilience and vibrancy of midtown Manhattan’s office market. ... This transaction also bolstered midtown’s economic activity and set a new standard for office leasing in the legal sector."
Andrew Judd at Colliers said the large deal not only met the tenant needs but also "validated the resiliency of the market," and underscored "midtown Manhattan as a location of choice for major law firms."
UPDATED They made it happen: RXR's team working on the deal included William Elder, executive vice president and managing director of New York leasing and Daniel Birney, senior vice president and director of leasing. Newmark's team that represented the tenant included Vice Chairmen Moshe Sukenik and Chris Mongeluzo, and Senior Managing Director Brian Cohen. Cushman & Wakefield's Executive Vice Chairman Mark Weiss also participated in the deal.
CoStar senior market manager Grant Hunt contributed to this article.