A letter from Vicus Partners’ co-founders on the Coronavirus pandemic and what it means for Small Business tenants in New York City (NYC)

The Coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic is testing how businesses can quickly respond to flexible working. Unfortunately, there will be deadly pathogens in the future. We must rethink the future of office work. Flexible work may be a solution that we can all work on together.

Offices need to prepare themselves beyond Coronavirus. We must think about how to retrofit our current and future office space better to protect employees from current and future pathogens. This way, the next time a pathogen like SARS or Coronavirus spreads we can be better prepared. Here are 8 ways we can start.

One of the best-kept secrets in the commercial real estate business, or at least one of the most lucrative secrets, is the degree to which landlords exploit the electricity clauses in their leases. Virtually every tenant over-pays for electricity. It’s an enormous profit center for building owners and landlords go out of their way to make electric clauses confusing. They do this because it makes them money. Even sophisticated tenants with smart attorneys routinely sign terrible electric clauses – in large part because they don’t fully understand what they are signing.

So you signed your office lease at the top of the market — you’re paying a small fortune in rent, but your space is only worth a fraction of what you’re paying. What can you do to lessen your financial burden? Blend and extend. And here’s how it works:

Hey, we all make mistakes – but when it comes to leasing office space for your business, mistakes equal dollars – sometimes big dollars. Here are the eight most common mistakes tenants make when renting office space, as well as an insider’s take on how to avoid making them.

A Subordination and Non-Disturbance Agreement (SNDA) commonly called a “non-disturb” is an agreement that your landlord asks its lender to provide. The agreement basically says that if the building goes bankrupt and the lender takes control of the building from the landlord, the lender will honor your lease.

In a word, yes. Why? Because small tenants are the lifeblood of Manhattan’s commercial real estate market. Really? Look at the graph below. 36% of commercial tenants rent less than 2,500 square feet of office space. In the world of big time Manhattan commercial real estate, do you know what 2,500 square feet is?

If you ever walk in New York City, you’ll quickly realize the stores have a different vibe, the architecture suddenly changes, and people have a different aura. This is the beauty of Manhattan. Go ten blocks, and all of a sudden it’s a new experience.

1. You matter to landlords: 78% of office leases in NYC are under 10,000 square feet, and 56% are under 5,000 square feet. You don’t have to be a large space footprint to matter to a landlord; smaller space footprints are the lifeblood of the NYC real estate market. Landlords look at more than just size when considering a tenant; are you good for the community? How financially sound is your firm? Is there growth potential here? Who are you serving? In a slightly softening real estate market, a landlord would rather keep you than negotiate a new deal with a new tenant, so you have leverage.

Presented by Jonathan Twombly, Law Firm Team Director and former lawyer at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, we reveal the workplace trends in their industry, and tell you why it matters to you.

1. Rent is a critical component of your overhead: Real estate decisions are critical to non-profits for many reasons, including because rent is often the 2nd largest expense. You want to find the right space that balances supporting your budget and your mission.

Less than a decade ago, if you were a tech start-up, you it was all about Silicon Valley. Times have changed. Over the past few years, there’s been a tech explosion in New York City, making it one of the hottest destinations for tech firms, rivaling Boston and Silicon Valley as the place to be. Thousands of start-ups originate in New York City each year, hundreds of which are funded.

We talked in The Rise of the Tech Firm in NYC: How to Win the Right Space about the tech and start-up revolution in NYC, and how to win the right space for your concept. Now let’s talk about what this means for you – where should you be, and what should you ask for?

There are a few things you know you’re getting when you get to New York City: incredible pizza, traffic jams at any time of the day or night, and some of the highest rental prices in the US. No way to avoid them right? Medici Living’s concept ‘Quarters’ would love to change that.

Coworking – it’s the talk of the town in New York City real estate, and has substantial impact on the city’s business landscape from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, landlords to tenants, and us to you. We wanted to share information on the coworking solution and how to answer the question: “is this for me?”

Silicon Valley has long since been renowned as the heart of startup, and to date houses the most tech companies in the world. However, recent years have seen New York City transform from a food and fashion hub into perhaps the hottest spot for young entrepreneurs with world-changing ideas, especially in the fintech field. With the rise of incubators, our city is disrupting life as we know it – one business at a time.

With the first US charter school opening its doors in 1992, and the first in New York City opening in Harlem in 1999, the concept of a charter school is still relatively new, and its benefits to the public education system have been subject to partisan debate for decades. Let’s explore…

Green is most certainly the new black – and everyone who can afford to go green is doing so. Note: the key phrase in that sentence is “everyone who can afford to go green” – that’s right, folks, going green can be pretty expensive, especially when it’s commercial real estate that you’re talking about.

“The Great Retail Apocalypse.” We’ve all heard about it, and seen its dreaded effects on the market as beloved former giants such as Sears, Toys R’ Us and Radioshack have filed for bankruptcy and effectively disappeared. This scale down in brick-and-mortar can be blamed on the rise of the digital era and a new online kingdom in which Amazon reigns supreme. It’s been said that retail is dead but we’d like to respectfully disagree. Retail isn’t dead, it’s evolving.

E-commerce is the modern Hannibal Lecter of real estate…or is it? We know that with every single item we could ever possibly need available online, conventional sellers have had to shift gears to remain relevant. This shift has trickled down into the property market, as many storefronts who failed to adapt to the modern era, and saw foot traffic slow, have closed down. However, while this may be tough for those who have stuck to their traditional retail methods, it has opened a door for new real estate sales: warehouses.