Real Estate Insider Swipe Back-to-Work Barometer

The widely cited Back-to-Work Barometer from Kastle Systems, It claims to tally how many employees have returned to the officemissing hundreds of skyscrapers with the highest attendance.

Kastle counts swipes of entry only in office buildings that pay for security services. These “NYC Metro” properties include 200 Class A Manhattan buildings, it said. But the Post’s analysis found that Kastle tracks only one of the city’s ten largest real estate empires, omitting the largest building from a second. The largest real estate companies have the majority of financial and legal tenants with more employees on site than other types of companies.

The yawning gap in Kastle’s research reflects “a lack of data accuracy in this market,” said Peter Riguardi, regional CEO of JLL.

Including Mayor Eric Adams, Castle’s findings are beyond doubt. However, landlords and sources have revealed, shockingly, that Castle is not counting swipes in buildings owned or managed by SL Green and Bornado Realty Trust.

Kastle does not cover the vast empires of Tishman Speyer, Rudin Management, Silverstein Properties, Brookfield Property Partners, Boston Properties, affiliates or the Rockefeller Group.

“Barometer” does not track the World Trade Center, Hudson Yards, or Manhattan West. It also excludes the Empire State Building, One Vanderbilt, One Bryant Park and 55 Water Street (the city’s largest single office location at 3.5 million square feet).

Kastle also overlooks six towers owned by financial services users, including JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters at 383 Madison Avenue.

“Castle is not considered a definitive source of Manhattan office occupancy,” said Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of CBRE’s Tri-State Region.

Considering the gap, she said: We know that good buildings have significantly higher occupancy rates and that buildings serving the financial services industry have higher attendance. ”

Kastle missed properties account for more than a third of the city’s 450 million square feet of office inventory. More importantly, they account for perhaps his two-thirds of the highest-attended Class A trophies.

“Not all buildings are alike,” said an insider who wished to remain anonymous. “If a 1960s building on Third Avenue rented to small businesses is 40% occupied, so are the much larger buildings on Park, Sixth Avenue, or Hudson Yards rented to banks and lawyers. It cannot be assumed that only % is occupied.”

Dan Biederman, head of consulting firm BRV Corp. and president of both Bryant Park Corporation and the 34th Street Partnership, has been “skeptical” of Kastle’s data for some time. he chuckled.

Kathryn Wilde, president and chief executive of The Partnership, a business advocacy group in New York City, said the study, which reports higher occupancy than Castle, said: Status of remote work

Her latest count shows Manhattan’s average weekly occupancy is up 50% for the first time. Kastle’s latest occupancy rate is her 47.8%, up significantly from her 43.8% last week.

In contrast to Kastle’s lowball attendance figures, Related’s Hudson Yards tower has averaged 60% occupancy since last summer, sources said, while the Seagram Building, which Kastle covers, has 75%, except on Friday. % is.

Kastle did not dispute the list of buildings The Post did not track, but declined to disclose which buildings were significant, citing client confidentiality.

“Kastle believes the barometer is an accurate representation of return-to-work trends,” said a company representative.

She said Kastle is “confident that it can extrapolate” its data to the “bigger picture.”

“We will continue to track new trends and welcome others to share data that can be incorporated into existing barometers,” she said. , to help better plan hybrid work and provide the American public with insight into future trends.”