Downtown setting pace for Manhattan office leasing market

Asking rents up, availability down in commercial submarket

CBRE's Peter Turchin and Lower Manhattan
CBRE's Peter Turchin and Lower Manhattan

Downtown appears to be shaking its third-wheel status as Manhattan’s weakest submarket for office leasing.

According to a CBRE report, asking rents there have risen 8 percent since the beginning of 2014, surpassing gains in Midtown and the increasingly tech-friendly Midtown South. Rents continue to rise despite large chunks of space From The World Trade Center Site And Brookfield Place entering the market.

“It is interesting, as Downtown was the market that people had feared for the most, but it is the one that has the been growth in asking rents,” Peter Turchin, CBRE vice chairman, told Crain’s.

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Availability there has lowered to 11.7 percent, inching closer to Midtown’s rate of 11.1 percent.

The Lower Manhattan market is also anticipating the addition of three new commercial spaces, with 1.1 million square feet at 1 Chase Plaza and two large blocks from Brookfield at 1 Liberty Street and 300 Vesey Street anticipated to go live in the coming months. [Crain’s] — Kerry Barger