Manhattan Office Glut Grows as Landlords Face Virus Boom

  • New York metro-area has fewest workers returning to offices
  • Pandemic followed wave of new office construction in New York
Pedestrians walk past One Vanderbilt, left, in New York on June 8.Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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It rises 1,401 feet over midtown Manhattan like a monument to another time -- a shiny new skyscraper commissioned long before the world had ever heard of Covid-19.

Donning masks, the developers cut the ribbon at One Vanderbilt in September, six months into the pandemic that has emptied offices across New York. Now what once seemed like a grand play by its developer, SL Green Realty Corp., stands in stark contrast to the growing angst inside the city’s office market.