B
ank of New York has secured 192,000 square feet in the former Condé Nast building at One World Trade Center, according to the Commercial Observer. The four‑floor lease will serve as a temporary home while the bank renovates its headquarters at 240 Greenwich Avenue. The transaction underscores Lower Manhattan’s recovery 24 years after 9/11, a theme highlighted in the Downtown Alliance’s second‑quarter report. That report noted an 87 % jump in leasing activity compared with the same period last year, the strongest pace since the pandemic. Vacancy fell to 22.8 % for the sixth straight quarter, partly due to the removal of 89,000 square feet earmarked for residential conversion. CBRE data confirms the trend, reporting 2.7 million square feet of downtown leasing activity this year and 870,000 square feet of net absorption. The Alliance also points out that the residential population below Chamber Street, including Battery Park City, has risen from just under 33,000 pre‑9/11 to 70,000 today.