Companies still want a piece of Manhattan. Some 3.4 million square feet of office space was leased in August, the most since January 2020, when the first Covid cases began to pop up in New York City.

Notably, space in Midtown is steadily getting harder to find. More space was newly leased than became available in Manhattan’s central business district decreased for the sixth straight month, as was the case for Manhattan as a whole.

However, Midtown’s available office space has increased by 36 percent since March 2020. Modest compared to Midtown South (where it has more than doubled), Downtown (up ...