A downtrodden U.S. office market isn't stopping some top-tier buildings from hitting the coveted industry mark of $100 per square foot for rent. The willingness of some tenants to pay that amount is a telling sign of how high-priced buildings can leave their less-elaborate counterparts behind.

New York leases with triple-digit starting rents reached a record high of 192 last year, with financial services leasing 80% of top-dollar space, a JLL study found. The number of buildings in the city making the list also rose to a record 80 last year from 77 in 2022 as several properties joined the club for the first time.

While New York’s record high-end deals had no match elsewhere in the country, the phenomenon of well-resourced tenants shelling out for new or renovated properties or those near transit hubs has shown up elsewhere. Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Miami and Washington, D.C., also are markets that have broken the $100 per-square-foot mark with “some degree of regularity,” JLL’s national office research director, Jacob Rowden, told CoStar News.

As study author and JLL Vice Chairman Cynthia Wasserberger explained: “Every market has its trophy building. The overall market is pretty tepid. The trophy [properties] really carried the day. That reflects the continued flight to quality. … It’s a big part of tenants’ ability to retain and attract talent.”

In another encouraging sign for owners, many of Manhattan’s top-dollar tenants took more space last year, reversing the 2022 trend of taking less, Wasserberger said, adding, “That’s a healthy barometer.”

She expects the gravitation to top-dollar properties to continue, boding well for new buildings coming online — especially when there are “some constraints in the supply pipeline.”

Here’s a look at some of the properties that have made the more than $100 club in New York and around the country:

Located at 767 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan, the 2 million-square-foot General Motors Building, bought by BXP in 2008, signed seven deals that exceeded $100 per square foot last year, according to the JLL study. The 50-story tower on the corner of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue by Central Park completed in July its amenities floor called Savoy Club. The 35,000-square-foot space, designed by architecture and interiors firm Fogarty Finger, includes space formerly occupied by the famed FAO Schwarz toy store and features a luxury gym and health center as well as a food and beverage concept, and a conferencing suite. Law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges is the building’s largest tenant, with nearly 435,000 square feet, followed by cosmetics giant Estee Lauder, with 222,520 square feet, according to CoStar data.

The RFR-owned historic building located at 375 Park Ave., between West 52nd and 53rd streets, secured 12 triple-digit dollar leases, the most of any Manhattan building last year with two-thirds recorded as renewals, JLL said. That track record affirms that “once in occupancy, tenants seek to remain in this iconic Midtown asset,” JLL said. The landmark tower, with a 34,000-square-foot, multilevel amenity space featuring perks such as a sports court for basketball and pickleball, also was ranked No. 1 among the deals over $100 per square foot signed in 2022 in New York, RFR has said.

The trophy tower of Manhattan’s largest office landlord, SL Green Realty, scored what the JLL study found was the highest starting rent of 2023 at $247 per square foot. The 1,401-foot tall, 1.7 million-square-foot One Vanderbilt, by the Grand Central Terminal transit hub, touts amenities including a 30,000-square-foot tenant-only amenity floor with large-format meeting spaces, club-style lounge, curated food offerings from celebrity chef Daniel Boulud and a landscaped terrace, SL Green has said. It’s also known for its popular multifloor Summit observatory. The building has zero vacancy, compared with the rate of about 16% vacancy in the surrounding Grand Central area where it sits, according to CoStar data.

Tishman Speyer’s new 66-story office development located at 66 Hudson Blvd. on the far west side of Manhattan signed seven deals over $100 per square foot, according to JLL. Rising over 1,000 feet and featuring cascading landscaped terraces and hanging gardens as its signature element, the office building spanning 2.87 million square feet, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, counts among its heavyweight tenants drugmaker Pfizer, law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, banking giant HSBC and asset manager AllianceBernstein.

The landmark tower in midtown Manhattan signed four deals for more than $100 per square foot last year, JLL found. An art installation — a 50,000-pound stone hanging in the newly renovated lobby — aims to stop people in their tracks. The 800,000-square-foot, 41-story 550 Madison Ave., designed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, debuted in 1984 as the headquarters for AT&T and served as the U.S. home for Sony. Olayan Group, which bought the building in 2016 for $1.4 billion, has revamped the property and turned it into a multitenant office property for the first time. One of the top-dollar leases came from global private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice, which has signed a roughly 144,000-square-foot lease at the property that's between East 55th and 56th streets.

The property developed by Hudson Square Properties, a joint venture made up of Trinity Church Wall Street, Norges Bank Investment Management and Hines as the operating partner, for the first time made JLL’s list of buildings commanding over $100 per square foot. The 270,000-square-foot, 16-story 555 Greenwich St. in the Hudson Square neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan was New York’s first speculative office building unveiled during the pandemic. Combined with the existing historic art deco-styled 345 Hudson St. to become one full-block office building, the property spans more than 1 million square feet and is in a neighborhood where corporate giants, including Google and Disney, plan to set up major campuses. The neighborhood is surrounded by Tribeca, Greenwich Village and SoHo, with the Hudson River and its waterfront walkway and park to the west.

The Class A, 55-story tower spanning over 2.5 million square feet is part of Vornado Realty Trust’s Penn District development. The renovation of Penn 1, with direct access to New York’s Penn Station and the Moynihan Train Hall transit hubs, involved overhauling the building, which opened in 1972. Added amenities include a full-service restaurant, bleacher-seating event space and a health clinic. Financial services firm Canaccord Genuity last year signed a lease spanning nearly 73,000 square feet at the property, between Seventh and Eighth avenues and south of West 34th Street, paying the asking rent of $103 per square foot, CoStar data shows.

The Meatpacking District property also made the JLL list for the first time by signing two deals for more than $100 per square foot last year. The mixed-use retail and office space is located in “meticulously-restored historic brick-and-beam rowhouses” and a new BKSK-designed office building, according to the property page, adding that the building has fronts facing both 14th Street and Ninth Avenue. The 57,000-square-foot terra-cotta-and-glass office building, developed by Tavros Holdings, sets back from the streets and is connected to the historic rowhouses, according to a marketing brochure. The property is near tourist attractions, including the High Line, Little Island, Chelsea Market and the Whitney Museum of Art. Its neighborhood office occupiers include Google, Samsung and Yext, according to the brochure.

The property in Miami’s Financial District boasts the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as its largest tenant and signed three over $100-per-square-foot leases in 2023, according to CoStar data. That included law firm Venable’s 17,900-square-foot lease in September with $110 in per-square-foot asking rent, CoStar data shows. The tower, featuring panoramic waterfront and city views, is steps from luxury retail shops and food and beverage options at the mixed-use complex Brickell City Centre, according to the property’s leasing page.

St. Louis-based investment bank Stifel in June renewed its lease, spanning 68,446 square feet at the property, by seven years with starting rent of $102 per square foot, according to CoStar data. The 38-story, 753,000-square-foot tower, built in 1982 and renovated in 2019, counts personal stylist service Stitch Fix as the largest tenant with nearly 134,000 square feet, based on the data. Located in San Francisco’s Financial District, the property provides 20,000-square-foot floor plates and 9-foot ceiling heights, and features amenities including conference facilities, a gym, showers, a tenant lounge and bike parking, according to a lease description by JLL.

Located at 600 Montgomery St. in San Francisco, the property is undergoing a significant renovation and has signed several leases over $100 per square foot with some reaching as high as $200 per square foot in base rent, according to JLL's Rowden. The building's property page describes it as San Francisco’s most iconic building since its opening in 1972. Designed by futurist architect William Pereira, owner SHVO is reportedly spending $400 million to overhaul the property designed by architect Norman Foster.

The recently completed 830 Brickell Ave. office tower in Miami has signed several deals at more than $100 per square foot, JLL's Rowden said. Billed as Miami's first Class A+ freestanding office building to be built in over a decade, the 55-story, 1 million-square-foot building was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the firm behind the Jeddah Tower and Burj Khalifa, the tallest towers in the world, according to the building page.

This story was updated Jan. 29 to correct mislabeled CoStar data regarding 600 14th St. NW in Washington, D.C.