Office Space for Lease on Fifth Ave/Madison Avenue

Fifth and Madison are the addresses people picture when they think of a New York office. One made the advertising business famous. The other has the priciest storefronts on earth. Plenty of companies lease here for the name on the door, and on this corridor the name still pulls its weight.

You pay for it. Ordinary Class A goes for about $105/SF, Cushman & Wakefield’s latest corridor read, which already sits above the Midtown Class A average. Trophy floors leave that behind at $120 to $180/SF for the best space on Fifth or up by the Plaza (CoStar, 2025). Price isn’t even the hard part. The hard part is that almost nothing is open. Brookfield’s 660 Fifth leased its last floor in 2025. Olayan’s 550 Madison is in the high 90s. Midtown trophy vacancy is down to 2.9% (CBRE, Q1 2026). If you want a flagship address on this stretch, you wait your turn.

The trade-off that makes the fight worth it is the commute. Most premium Midtown corridors give you subways and nothing else. This one has Grand Central at its south end, so Metro-North, the LIRR, and four subway lines before you even count the stations strung along the avenues. Suburban team or city team, it covers both. More on that lower down. To see what’s open right now, start by browsing Fifth and Madison office space.

Fifth Avenue / Madison Avenue Office Market Overview

For seventy years, “Madison Avenue” meant advertising and Fifth Avenue meant the most expensive shop windows in the world. The offices behind those windows turned into one of the strongest trophy markets in the city, and the tenants changed while nobody was watching. The ad agencies thinned out. Hedge funds, private equity, and money managers moved in for the same Central Park views.

Timing helps. Manhattan signed 11.78 million SF in Q1 2026, its best first quarter since 2014, and availability tightened to 13.7% (Colliers, Q1 2026). Across Midtown, asking rents hit $78.23/SF overall and $85.28/SF for Class A, still climbing toward CBRE’s $84.77 May read (Cushman & Wakefield, April 2026). On this corridor the trophy end has gone from tight to nearly empty. Two stories explain the moment: a run of big leases that mopped up the best towers, and the first rebuild of Fifth Avenue itself in two centuries.

Four Forces to Monitor

• The good towers are full. Brookfield took the gutted shell of the old 666 Fifth and leased every floor in under four years, landing Citadel (504,000 SF), Macquarie (250,000 SF), and Scotiabank (205,000 SF) after a $400 million overhaul (The Real Deal, September 2025). A block up, Olayan’s 550 Madison, the old AT&T and Sony tower, runs about 96% leased with Chubb, Hermès, and Aquarian in it (Commercial Observer, May 2025). With Midtown trophy vacancy at 2.9% (CBRE, Q1 2026), a flagship floor here usually means waiting on a sublease or a single rare opening.
• Fifth Avenue is getting a $402 million redo. The city fully funded the “Future of Fifth” plan, the first major rebuild of the avenue in 200 years. Sidewalks get 46% wider, traffic lanes drop from five to three, and more than 230 trees go in between Bryant Park and Central Park (NYC Mayor’s Office, May 2025). Construction starts in 2028. Since the plan went public, $3.9 billion in Fifth Avenue property has changed hands (amNewYork, May 2025). We’ve argued this is Midtown’s next great office corridor, and for a tenant it adds up to more foot traffic, better surroundings, and an address worth more in five years than it is today.
• The money keeps coming. 590 Madison, the old IBM building with the bamboo atrium, sold to RXR in 2025. BXP refinanced and re-leased the GM Building at 767 Fifth, the country-club tower on Grand Army Plaza with the Apple Cube out front. New construction is rare, but BXP is putting up 343 Madison over Grand Central, a 930,000 SF all-electric tower with insurer Starr anchoring 275,000 SF, due in 2029 (BXP, January 2026). Nobody spends like that on a corridor they expect to fade.
• The shops and the offices help each other. Fifth Avenue rents the priciest retail on earth, and the flagships pull crowds: Tiffany’s redone maison, the Cartier mansion, the luxury houses all up the avenue. For an office tenant upstairs, that is a free amenity package and an easy sell when you’re coaxing people back to their desks. Some of the busiest retail space in the country sits at street level here.

How Much Does Fifth Avenue / Madison Avenue Office Space Cost?

Pricing here splits clean down the middle. Ordinary Class A asks around $105/SF (Cushman & Wakefield’s latest read), already over the $85.28/SF Midtown Class A average (Cushman & Wakefield, Q1 2026). Trophy floors are a different animal: $120 to $180/SF for the best Fifth Avenue and Plaza-adjacent space (CoStar, 2025), with the GM Building quoting close to $180 up top.

Whatever value exists sits at the south end. Older Class B and renovated space near Bryant Park and the lower Madison blocks by Grand Central runs well under the trophy rents. Before you tour anything, push your headcount through our Office Space Calculator so you’re shopping the right footprint, and read the corridor the way it really prices: cheaper at the bottom, steeper as you climb.

Class A and Trophy Space

Class A here is the avenues themselves, and the trophy tier is about as good as office space gets anywhere. 660 Fifth is the one to know. Brookfield’s full blockfront between 52nd and 53rd, 1.25 million SF, reskinned in glass and run on hydropower, went from empty to fully leased in under four years. Citadel took 504,000 SF across 20 floors as a stopgap headquarters, Macquarie sits on the roofline, and Scotiabank grabbed the last block (The Real Deal, September 2025).

The Plaza seam in the 50s is the other cluster worth your time. 550 Madison, Philip Johnson’s pink-granite landmark (the old AT&T, then Sony, now Olayan’s), reopened as a multi-tenant tower chasing LEED Platinum and WELL Gold, and it filled fast: Chubb on ten floors, the Hermès headquarters, Aquarian up in the penthouse, plus Corsair, Junto, and Clayton Dubilier & Rice (Commercial Observer, May 2025). Next door, the GM Building at 767 Fifth, the full-block tower on Grand Army Plaza with the Apple Cube on its plaza and Central Park out the windows, keeps a roster of Estée Lauder, Weil Gotshal, Perella Weinberg, and Baron Capital, with top floors said to clear $180/SF (Commercial Observer).

Curious what separates a trophy from plain Class A? Our piece on how trophy buildings set themselves apart spells it out, and the top Class A buildings in Midtown rundown covers the rest of the field.

Class B Space

The deals a normal company can win happen off the trophy blocks, down by Bryant Park and along lower Madison near Grand Central. Spruced-up prewar and postwar towers there, 546 Fifth with its WeWork floors, the smaller buildings in the 40s, give you a Fifth or Madison address and a move-in-ready suite without a hedge fund’s checkbook.

Rents come in under the trophy line, and how far under depends on the building, the block, and how a landlord sizes up your credit (Metro Manhattan internal research, May 2026). Two Class B floors one block apart will quote you wildly different numbers the same afternoon, so walk them yourself and ignore the corridor average. These buildings suit law firms, financial services boutiques, and medical and healthcare practices that want the address without the trophy bill.

Class C and Value Space

Real Class C barely exists on Fifth and Madison; the corridor runs on Class A and renovated Class B. The closest thing to a bargain is tired, untouched space at the south end and on the side streets, plus whatever sublease space shakes loose when a trophy tenant dumps a block. Those subleases usually come furnished and wired, so you give up customization and a long runway in exchange for rent that can land well below direct.

Be careful at this end. Nobody publishes an honest Class C average for the corridor, so stay skeptical if someone hands you one tidy number (that read is Metro Manhattan internal research, May 2026). If brick, beams, and character are the goal, that’s a loft space hunt in Midtown South, not Fifth Avenue. Start in Chelsea or SoHo.

Lease Concessions and Effective Rent

Most tenants fight the asking rent and forget the parts that matter more, the free rent and the build-out money. Even here, where landlords hold the cards, those givebacks are real if your credit and term line up. CBRE clocks Midtown concessions on big, long direct deals (over 25,000 SF, terms past ten years) at roughly $156/SF in tenant-improvement money plus 16 months free, with a taking-rent index of 95.9% (CBRE, Q1 2026). In plain terms, the rent you sign and the rent you actually pay are two different numbers.

The ranges below reflect recent corridor deals (Metro Manhattan internal research, May 2026) on a five or ten-year term. Shorter deals get less, longer deals get more. If you can’t settle on length, our breakdown of three, five, or ten-year lease terms runs the math.

One last bit of homework. Net effective rent almost always lands under the face rent (our concessions explainer does the arithmetic), and a build-out allowance is only worth what it builds, so figure out who pays for the build-out and how sublease and assignment terms work before you’re at the table.

Which Businesses Lease on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue?

This corridor has always drawn prestige industries, and the headline tenant keeps changing. For decades it was advertising and media. Now the trophy towers belong mostly to finance, the hedge funds, private equity shops, money managers, and insurers, while Fifth Avenue proper houses the world’s luxury and beauty names. Law firms, family offices, and professional-services shops fill the gaps, and the cheaper buildings down south pick up the smaller and newer outfits. Find your row and the search gets a lot shorter.

Small team? This is the most expensive corridor in Midtown, so be honest about whether the address pays for itself. For a client-facing finance or law shop, it often does. If so, aim at the cheaper buildings down south and watch for sublease blocks instead of chasing the trophies. Want to size it up against cheaper ground first? Our 5 top neighborhoods for small businesses does the comparison, and if you’re moving up from a shared desk, going from coworking to your own office is the playbook. If you’re tech or creative and the Fifth Avenue name isn’t the point, your money buys more building in Midtown South or Downtown Manhattan.

Top Office Buildings and Amenities on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue

This corridor has what most of Midtown only claims to: actual trophy buildings, Central Park frontage up north, and the best retail in the world at the curb. The recent redos (660 Fifth, 550 Madison, the GM Building) gave it a real amenity story, and 343 Madison will add to it in 2029. Three tiers worth knowing:

• Trophy (660 Fifth, 550 Madison, 767 Fifth / GM Building): glass reskins or landmark interiors, private clubs and lounges, wellness floors and conferencing, hydropower and LEED or WELL certifications, Central Park and skyline views, an Apple Cube or a luxury flagship at the base. The top of the Midtown heap.
• Renovated Class A (Fifth Avenue core, 400 and 274 Madison): refreshed lobbies and systems, prebuilt suites, retail downstairs, trains at the corner.
• Class B and value (lower Fifth, side streets): prewar bones, big windows, a doorman lobby, move-in-ready suites, and a Fifth or Madison address for less.

Featured Buildings

• 660 Fifth Avenue: Brookfield’s 1.25 million SF, 39-story tower on the full block between 52nd and 53rd, reskinned in glass and fully leased to Citadel, Macquarie, Scotiabank, and others after a $400 million overhaul.
• 550 Madison Avenue: Olayan’s roughly 800,000 SF Philip Johnson landmark (the old AT&T and Sony Building), reborn as a multi-tenant tower chasing LEED Platinum and WELL Gold, around 96% leased with Chubb, Hermès, and Aquarian.
• 767 Fifth Avenue (General Motors Building): BXP’s full-block, roughly 1.8 million SF tower on Grand Army Plaza, home to the Apple Cube and tenants like Estée Lauder, Weil Gotshal, and Perella Weinberg. See the building profile.
• 590 Madison Avenue (IBM Building): a roughly 1 million SF Class A tower with a landmarked glass-and-bamboo public atrium, bought by RXR in 2025.
• 343 Madison Avenue: BXP’s 930,000 SF all-electric tower going up over Grand Central between 44th and 45th, anchored by insurer Starr, due late 2029.
• 725 Fifth Avenue (Trump Tower): the mixed-use tower at 56th Street with office, retail, and residential floors. See the building profile.
• 546 Fifth Avenue: the Safra family’s roughly 190,000 SF Class A building near Rockefeller Center, with a WeWork inside. See the building profile.
• 400 Madison Avenue: a landmark Class A building with boutique floors near Grand Central. See the building profile.
• 274 Madison Avenue: a prewar office-and-retail building near Grand Central with smaller, cheaper floors. See the building profile.

Major Office Landlords on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue

The name on the deed matters as much as the one on the lobby, and this corridor draws some of the sharpest landlords in the country. Brookfield proved the thesis by reviving 660 Fifth. Olayan treats 550 Madison like the landmark it is. RXR picked up 590 Madison in 2025. BXP owns the GM Building and is building the next big tower at 343 Madison. Paramount, the Safra family, and the Trump Organization hold their own Fifth Avenue addresses. A good broker already knows which of them funds build-outs and which dig in on every clause. For the wider picture, our rundown of the biggest commercial landlords in NYC is a good place to start.

Transportation and Commuting to Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue

This might be the best-connected office address in New York. Forget the subway-only corridors out west; Fifth and Madison cover both ends. Grand Central sits at the south doorstep with Metro-North, the LIRR through the Grand Central Madison concourse (open since January 2023), and four subway lines, and the avenues themselves have a station every few blocks. Suburban commuters, city commuters, this corridor handles all of them. Settle the office argument with our Commute Calculator and everyone’s home zip code.