Construction crews are working through the top floors of One Liberty Plaza in Manhattan's Financial District, building out a 37,000-square-foot tenant amenity center that will include a café, a feature bar, a fitness center, and conference and training rooms. The project follows a recently completed $40 million lobby repositioning at the 743-foot, 54-story tower, and it's part of a broader push by owner Brookfield Properties to keep the 2.3-million-square-foot skyscraper competitive as major law firms reshape Manhattan's office market.
According to New York YIMBY, the amenity suite is being developed by Brookfield Properties and designed by HLW, and it will include gathering spaces for meetings, client engagement, and tenant events. Construction began in June 2026 and is anticipated to be completed in the second quarter of 2027, per the announcement covered by the outlet. Brookfield has owned and operated One Liberty Plaza since 2001, and the amenity center follows directly on the heels of the lobby's Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-led renovation, which introduced Italian travertine wall cladding, terrazzo flooring, double-height interior spaces, and custom furnishings by Gachot Studios.
A Lease That Justifies the Investment
The timing lines up with a major tenant commitment. In April, global law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton signed a 20-year lease renewal for 475,000 square feet across the top 10 floors of the building, according to Commercial Observer, which called it the largest office lease transaction in Manhattan that month. Cleary Gottlieb has been headquartered as the primary tenant at One Liberty Plaza since 1990, and the renewal came even as the firm trimmed its overall footprint from roughly 550,000 square feet, a downsizing detail reported by The Real Deal.
Brookfield's capital position behind the renovations has shifted substantially in recent years. The company bought out Blackstone Group's 49% stake in One Liberty Plaza in March 2023 at a property valuation of $1 billion, down from the $1.5 billion valuation Blackstone paid when it originally purchased its minority stake in December 2017, the same outlet reported. The Real Deal also notes that Brookfield secured a $750 million refinancing loan from Morgan Stanley in 2024, backing the tower's physical upgrades after Brookfield consolidated full ownership.
Why Law Firms Are Driving Manhattan's Office Market
The push to lure and retain firms like Cleary Gottlieb reflects a wider shift in Manhattan leasing. Legal services accounted for 17.1% of Manhattan office leasing volume through May 2026, up from 11% in 2025, fueled by minimum three-day-a-week in-office mandates now in place at 93% of major law firms, according to Savills data reported by ARCFE. Hoodline previously covered how that dynamic has fueled a broader leasing surge across the borough in a spring 2026 Manhattan office boom, with landlords pouring money into amenities to win top-tier corporate tenants.
Inside the lobby, that strategy is already visible in Pierre Huyghe's interactive video-game ceiling installation, A::Light, which Brookfield unveiled in February 2026. The piece turns the lobby ceiling into a playable video game and was originally created in 1999 for the Vienna Secession before appearing at the 2001 Venice Biennale, according to New York YIMBY's earlier coverage of the lobby debut. Beyond Cleary Gottlieb, the tower's tenant roster includes Aon plc, Business Insider, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and flexible workspace operator Convene, which runs a 93,000-square-foot meeting and event center in the building, per CoStar.
A Site With a Layered Past
One Liberty Plaza sits at 165 Broadway on a full block bounded by Cortlandt Street, Liberty Street, Church Street, and Broadway, rising on the former sites of the Singer Building and the City Investing Building. Completed in 1972 and designed in the International Style as the original U.S. Steel Building, it was the first high-rise office building in New York City built with an exposed structural steel facade, eliminating interior load-bearing columns to create open floor plates spanning nearly one acre each, according to background material from SOM.
The 41-story Beaux-Arts Singer Building that once stood on the site was demolished between 1967 and 1969, and it held the record as the tallest building ever voluntarily demolished until the 2019 teardown of 270 Park Avenue, per Wikipedia. Just across Liberty Street, Zuccotti Park was established in 1968 by U.S. Steel as a 33,000-square-foot Privately Owned Public Space density bonus tied to One Liberty Plaza, and it remains owned and operated by Brookfield. The tower also has a somber chapter in its history: following the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, it sustained non-structural exterior damage, and emergency medical personnel converted its ground-floor lobby into a temporary triage station and field hospital during Ground Zero recovery efforts, according to EMS1.
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