One office building is trying a radical new ploy to lure Google and other firms to Brooklyn

• An office building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is slashing rents and offering flexible leases.
• 25 Kent Ave. is offering 50% off to lure tech and media firms that are attracted to Manhattan.

When apartment landlords have empty units, they lure prospective tenants with cheaper rents and free perks.

Office landlords haven't historically offered such grand concessions to fill vacant square footage — until now.

The New York City real-estate developer Rubenstein Partners is willing to offer a nearly 50% discount on rent and more flexible terms than a typical lease — all to convince tech and media companies that opening an office in Brooklyn will compel their employees to return to work in person.

In July 2019, Rubenstein opened an eight-story, 511,000-square-foot office building at 25 Kent Ave. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Amazon Music, the retail giant's streaming service, and the cult streetwear brand Kith have already committed to open offices there alongside the coworking company Mindspace and the software startup Altana AI.

With about 65% of the building left to lease, Rubenstein told Insider it would offer three 8,000- to 10,000-square-foot spaces on the third floor for about $30 a square foot. It's a hefty discount: The signed tenants paid from the high $60s to mid-$70s. Rubinstein will also give these companies a three-year lease rather than locking them into a traditional 10-year agreement, it said.

There's just one catch: The rent will increase based on how many employees use the space. Rubenstein said it would track office attendance based on employees' ID-card swipes. If office occupancy hits 60%, that would incur market-rent charges.

Target tenants include Google, Facebook, Amazon, and companies that have over 500,000 square feet of office space in Manhattan.

Whitten Morris, a managing director at the commercial-real-estate firm JLL who handles leasing for the building, said he and Joe Zuber, Rubenstein's regional director in New York City and New England, were hoping to lure "high-credit, quality companies" with the rent deal, which would benefit Rubenstein, tenants, and their employees.

"We're super confident in it," Morris said. "And if it works, it's really a win-win for all three parties."

25 Kent's owners believe opening a Brooklyn site will inspire more workers to return to the office

Office-occupancy numbers in New York have increased since the coronavirus shutdowns in 2020 but are still nowhere near pre-pandemic figures.

According to Kastle Systems' "Back to Work Barometer" — a system that measures entry-card swipes — office occupancy in the New York metro area fell from 98.8% midway through February 2020 to as low as 4.3% just two months later. This month, that number is at 47.8%.

Companies that take Rubenstein's deal can either receive cheap rent or have a healthy flow of employees into their office space — the risk lies solely on the landlord.

That's a risk Morris and Zuber are willing to take. They believe employers are so desperate to see workers back in the office that they'll make moves as drastic as opening a Brooklyn outpost, they said.

"Employers are realizing that they want to get talent back to the office two to four days a week," Zuber said. "And why is that important? It's important for mentorship. It's important for collaboration."

Morris and Zuber see Williamsburg as appealing to a growing group of people dubbed "creative workers," employed by companies in the so-called TAMI fields: tech, advertising, media, and information. Morris cited a New York City-government survey that found Brooklyn's share of creative workers grew 27% between 2008 and 2017. By the end of the nine-year period studied, Brooklyn and Manhattan had about the same number of creative professionals: 111,478.

"The creative workforce in Brooklyn has grown dramatically over the last 10, 15 years," Morris said. "We're trying to create a middle ground that hasn't been thought of before. We're bringing the office right to you."

Office perks matter, too

Amenities at 25 Kent include a fitness center with locker rooms and showers, a communal roof deck overlooking Manhattan, scooter rentals, and storage for up to 150 bikes, with an on-site repair shop.

The ground-floor retail space of 25 Kent has a newly opened electric-bike shop, Rad Power Bikes, and is close to signing a coffee roastery, a café, and a seafood joint.

The next step: to fill the building with workers who will drink, eat, and ride there.