The few financial tenants at the new skyscrapers have come from outside the industry’s mainstream. The biggest is investment-research company Morningstar Inc., which took a 30,000-square-foot floor at 4 World Trade Center in September. IEX Group, the stock-selling startup that was the subject of Michael Lewis’s book Flash Boys, agreed to lease 13,000 square feet in that building in November.

At 1 World Trade Center, BMB Group, C12 Capital Management and Incandescent Technologies each took spaces smaller than 3,500 square feet.

Most Expensive

That 3 million-square-foot tower, the tallest in the Western Hemisphere, is 62 percent rented, up from 58 percent in early November, when the first Conde Nast employees started working there, said Eric Engelhardt, director of leasing for co- developer Durst Organization’s trade center operation. It cost $3.95 billion to construct, making it the world’s most expensive skyscraper, according to property-information website Emporis.com.

One World Trade Center’s observatory, encompassing floors 100 through 102, is scheduled to open by the end of June.

The building -- still known to many by its former name, the Freedom Tower -- has faced criticism in recent months, including a negative architecture review in the New York Times by Michael Kimmelman, who wrote that the skyscraper “looks as if it could be anywhere, which New York isn’t.” Comedian Chris Rock, in a Saturday Night Live opening monologue, called it the “never-going-in-there-tower, ’cause I’m never going in there.”

Confronting Fears

That fear of terrorism, or mere discomfort at being surrounded by the memorial in the footprints of the twin towers honoring those killed on 9/11, was something potential tenants had to confront.

“That’s absolutely one of the conversations that you have to talk to your employees about,” said Dipanshu Sharma, CEO of xAd Inc., a mobile-advertising technology company. The company in November took the entire 44,000-square-foot 60th floor at 1 World Trade Center.

“Ultimately, we decided it was the safest space on the planet now, because of the past history,” Sharma said. “You could take it as a space that could be under attack in the future, because it has been a target, or you could think of it as a matter of national pride that you’re part of the resurgence.”

Engelhardt said leasing will pick up in the coming year.