Times Square Is Having Trouble Hanging On to Office Workers
- Ernst & Young vacates a million square feet of office space
- Companies flee for Hudson Yards; good riddance to Spider-Man
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New York’s Times Square, which moved past its era of porn and squalor by luring companies to new skyscrapers, now faces defections by some of those very tenants.
The most recent is Ernst & Young LLP. Its departure from 5 Times Square, announced this month, may leave the tower’s million or so square feet of office space empty. The neighborhood’s effective office rents -- the rents that tenants actually pay, after concessions -- have fallen by 1 percent annually for two years, according to CoStar Group Inc., a research firm that tracks office leasing.