Nomad x Alternative Payments | Sublease & Expansion Strategy

01 Where Alternative Payments stands today

A team outgrowing its floor, in a market about to tighten.

Alternative Payments took the entire 9th floor at 44 West 37th Street, in the Garment District at the northern edge of Midtown South. With a lease running through September 2028, a $22M Series A closed in March 2025, and a team of about 75 across four continents, the conversation about what comes next, on both the space you are leaving and the space you are growing into, is already on the table.

Current footprint

44 West 37th Street · Entire 9th Floor

Garment District · Midtown South

See what's next →

3,152 SF

Full floorplate (about 20 desks)

$54 / SF

In-place rent

$22M

Series A · March 2025

Sep 2028

Current lease expiration

The team has outgrown one floor.

A $22M Series A and a team of about 75 processing payments for hundreds of service businesses. At 3,152 SF (about 20 desks), the current floor is already tight; the next step calls for 5,000 to 8,000 SF and room to keep hiring.

The window is open on both sides.

Timing creates leverage. Sublet supply sits near pre-pandemic lows, so your 9th-floor sublease faces little competition, while high-quality direct and sublease expansion inventory is still available at favorable economics before the corridor tightens.

An address that matches the platform.

Midtown South, from Flatiron up to NoMad, is where fintech and AI-native teams are concentrating; Ramp and PayPal both committed at size nearby. Staying in the corridor (or a block over) keeps recruiting, customer meetings, and culture intact.

02 The Market · Q1 2026

Quality and scarcity. The split keeps widening.

Q1 2026 was the strongest first quarter of new leasing since 2014, and the gains are not spread evenly.

~13.7%

Manhattan availability, per Colliers Q1 2026

8.8 MSF

Active tech / media demand, 22.1% AI-attributed

6.4 MSF

Volume in 100K+ SF deals across 14 mega-leases

16.7 MSF

Conversion pipeline, inventory leaving the market

Where Alternative Payments belongs: Midtown South and its neighbors

Q1 2026 availability by submarket (Colliers, Savills, and the Nomad Q1 report). Lower means tighter supply.

Penn District9.9%

Flatiron / Union Sq10.9%

Midtown12.7%

Manhattan (overall)13.7%

Grand Central13.7%

Garment / Midtown South← Alt. Payments sits here14.0%

Times Square14.0%

Downtown / FiDi16.8%

SoHo18.5%

Hudson Square20.1%

03 The Sublease Play · 44 West 37th

• Priced & negotiated independently of the expansion options below

Recover the rent you are already paying.

This is the space you are leaving, not the space you are growing into. You are committed through September 2028, so rather than carry an empty floor we sublease it furnished from a November 1, 2026 commencement. The chart compares what you owe the landlord (your rent roll) against three sublease strategies across the remaining term. Opening ask is $65/SF, an $11/SF premium over your $54 in-place cost; the three strategies below are the negotiated outcomes we plan around.

Premises

9th Floor

Size

3,152 SF

In-place

$54 / SF

Abatement

3 mo

Expiry

Sep 2028

Commencement

Nov 1 '26

Cumulative position over the remaining term

What you owe the landlord (about $326K total) versus sublease income recovered, November 2026 to September 2028.

Rent roll you owe, about $326K total Floor $56, 2 mo free: recovers about $309K (95%) Likely $60, 1 mo free: about $347K, $20K ahead Strong $63, no free: about $381K, $54K ahead

95%

Floor case

$56/SF with 2 months free recovers about $309K of your $326K obligation. Even the floor neutralizes most of the carry.

+$20K

Likely case

$60/SF with 1 month free brings in about $347K, roughly $20K beyond what you owe across the term.

+$54K

Strong case

$63/SF with no free rent brings in about $381K, about $54K of positive carry over the remaining term.

↔

Free rent nets out. Any free-rent period we offer a subtenant is offset by the free rent Nomad negotiates on your expansion lease, so the concession stays neutral across the two deals.

No in-house brokerage fee. As long as Nomad Group is engaged to source and execute the expansion space, we do not charge an in-house brokerage fee on the sublease.

01 · CONSENT

Landlord & recapture

Pressure-test consent and recapture language up front, then run approval in parallel with marketing.

02 · FF&E

Lead with furnished

Your built-out, furnished floor is the differentiator. Plug-and-play commands a premium and the shortest cycle.

03 · TERM

Match to Sep 2028

Market the full runway of about 23 months; stay flexible on shorter terms for AI and fintech bridge needs.

04 · VELOCITY

Priced to move

Comparable Midtown South full floors ask in the low-to-mid $70s direct; subleases trade at a discount, so $65 furnished is well-supported.

04 The Value Thesis

Premium space. Priced below the curve.

Here is the full market from our survey, plotted as a distribution of asking rents. The bell centers on the roughly $83 mean across the floors we tracked; 11 of our twelve picks sit to the left of it. The star marks 104 West 27th at $51, the lowest on the board. Click any violet point to open its brochure.

Value play (click to open) Scale play Market comp, by building

11 / 12

Below the market mean.

Across the floors surveyed, the mean asking rent is about $83/SF; all but one pick sits beneath it.

~16%

Average discount vs. the mean.

Capital you can redeploy into buildout, technology, or headcount, the things that move the roadmap forward.

$51 to $83

Where the picks land.

The full surveyed market runs from $42 to $145, so the shortlist clusters firmly on the value side.

05 The Shortlist

Twelve spaces worth touring.

Ranked by value (asking $/SF). Click any card to open the brochure as a slideshow, then use Next space to cycle through them all. Sized for the 5,000 to 8,000 SF range Alternative Payments needs through its next scale step.

VALUE · 01$61

Chelsea / NoMad

Room to grow

The Scale Plays

Three larger Class A floors for the team beyond the next hiring wave, so one move can do the work of two. 104 West 27th is the deepest value on the board at $51/SF, a build-to-suit floor that fits 40 to 60. 132 West 31st pairs a furnished, amenity-rich floor with a Penn District address; 1450 Broadway is white-box, built to your brand, in a Class A Times Square tower.

★ Deepest value$51

Chelsea

104 West 27th Street

Size7,047 SFFloor8thFits40-60

SCALE$69

Penn District

132 West 31st St · 31 Penn

Size8,083 SFFloor~13thFits38+

SCALE$80

Times Square

1450 Broadway

Size7,061 SFFloor~9thFits~40

06 See it all in one place

Every space, side by side, on one interactive map.

From Chelsea and NoMad to Grand Central and the Penn District, see all twelve spaces mapped across the corridors Alternative Payments would want: pricing, floorplates, and neighborhood at a glance.

Open the full Map Overview ↗

Walkable corridors · live pricing · every brochure one click away