A new play based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s third novel, “Elective Affinities,” and starring Tony Award-winning actress Zoe Caldwell, is showing in an elegant Manhattan townhouse on Fifth Avenue, the New York Times reported. The Soho Rep theater, normally headquartered at 64 Walker Street in Soho, had a reasonably difficult time finding the 19th century, brick-and-limestone-clad townhouse, for which theater-goers only receive the address after they reserve tickets. “We naïvely thought someone would want to rent their Upper East Side townhouse to us,” said Daniel Talbott, one of the producers of the play, which is about members of a vanishing social class. One broker was so confused she finally said, “It would be great if you could get a real theater” (italics not added). The address was not divulged in the Times. The show, which runs till Dec. 18, is sold out. [NYT]
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One does not usually speak of commercial real estate in terms of the miraculous, but as regards the Apple’s iconic flagship on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th streets — which just got an overhaul of its façade– the term is almost appropriate. For 40 years prior to Apple’s arrival in New York City in 2007, this area was a commercial disaster, first as a sunken pit whose varied businesses enticed few to descend, then, in developer Donald Trump’s reworking, as a marble-encased hole in the ground that no business could be induced to lease.

Only a business founded on the notion of “thinking outside the box” could possibly make a go of it, and no business fits that description better than Apple. [more]

From left: Jeffrey Roseman, executive vice president at Newmark Knight Frank, Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, and Madison Avenue

At least 60 new retailers have opened on Madison Avenue’s northern strip since January 2010, including high-end stores like Bottega Veneta with its $30,000 purses, the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District told the Wall Street Journal. An additional 10 new stores are under construction. Fifth Avenue also makes positive strides, as demand increases.

It’s a notable comeback for the avenue, which lost multiple high-profile tenants in the recession, including Christian Dior and Yves St. Laurent, driving the vacancy rate up to 15 percent at the worst of the market. Rents, which had soared to $1,500 a foot during the boom, also collapsed. [more]

The Times Square bow tie, at Broadway between West 42nd Street and West 47th Street, has made it onto a list of the world’s most expensive shopping stretches for the first time, Crain’s reported, with rents averaging $1,350 a square foot, according to data compiled by Cushman & Wakefield. “Times Square is the center of the world and it has become another place where retailers want to express their identity,” said Gene Spiegelman, executive vice president with Cushman & Wakefield. Rents on East 57th Street between Fifth and Madison avenues have also been increasing rapidly, the findings show, rising 20 percent to $1,200 a square foot year-over-year. Fifth Avenue, as usual, ranked as the most expensive shopping street in the world for the 10th year in a row, averaging $2,250 a square foot in the year ended June 30 — a 22 percent jump from a year earlier. [Crain's] [more]

Vacant storefronts in prime city areas are finding tenants, and many stores are seeing rents as high as they were in 2007. In order to survive, or find a bargain, retailers are getting creative and looking in less popular neighborhoods, or on side streets, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“It’s a tale of two cities,” said Gene Spiegelman, a broker at Cushman & Wakefield, of the price gap.
In 2008, retail vacancy reached 9 percent on the desirable upper stretch of Fifth Avenue, according to data provided by Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail leasing and sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman. The vacancy rate now sits around 7.5 percent. Rents fell to less than $2,000 a square foot, still the highest in the city. The vacancy rate hit 15 percent on Madison Avenue, according to Consolo, while in Soho, the rate went above 11 percent. [more]

New York’s Fifth Avenue remains the world’s most expensive retail destination as retailers continue to focus on major fashion capitals, according to a CB Richard Ellis Global Retail Market View report released today.

Rental values for the strip, extending from 49th to 59th streets, reached $1,900 per square foot, marking an increase of more than 10 percent in the last 12 months.

There was little change in the ratings from the previous quarter with the exception of Hong Kong, which moved up to second place, the fastest growing market in the first quarter of 2011 following a rental hike of 46 percent quarter-over-quarter. Rents in Hong Kong reached $1,697 per square foot per year, and in Sydney, the third highest ranking city, they were $1,301 per foot. TRD [more]

Michael O’Neill, senior director at Cushman & Wakefield, and Manhattan retail market statistics (data source: Cushman & Wakefield)

Retail rents were flat over the past year along the Upper Fifth Avenue corridor
from 49th to 60th streets, but jumped sharply along the stretch of Fifth Avenue
between 42nd and 49th streets, a new first-quarter report from commercial real estate firm
Cushman & Wakefield shows.

The average asking rent was $2,067 per square foot on Upper Fifth Avenue in the first
quarter this year, barely up from the average asking rent of $2,033 per square foot in the
same period one year ago, the data indicates.

In contrast, the stretch on Lower Fifth Avenue had the increase over the past
year, rising by 30 percent to $595 per square foot in the first quarter from $458
per square foot in first-quarter 2010, Cushman figures show. It was the highest
price for the district since the first quarter of 2009, when it was $596 per foot. [more]

The North Face is shifting its gears towards a Fifth Avenue retail hunt, according to the Observer. Until now, the outdoor apparel retailer, which currently has Manhattan locations on the Upper West Side, in Soho and on Madison Avenue, had purposely shied away from the glitz of Fifth Avenue to maintain its “rugged image,” a source told the paper. But the company is finally giving in, in an attempt to attract European tourists who prefer to stay within the confines of the luxe strip. [more]

John Strachan

For the ninth consecutive year, New York City is home to the world’s priciest retail, according to a global retail report from Cushman & Wakefield, released today, which tracks the world’s top 269 shopping locations. Fifth Avenue, which saw its rents increase 8.8 percent from last year, up to an average $1,850 per square foot, nabbed the top spot, while Causeway Bay in Hong Kong and New Bond Street in London came in second and third places, respectively. Retail rents in prime locations — those that have, historically, been in high demand — are showing the greatest rebound from the 2009 doldrums, according to Cushman. Still, so-called “secondary locations” worldwide have faced challenges on the road to recovery, according to John Strachan, global head of retail at Cushman. “The aftershocks of the global economic recession are still being felt in the retail property market,”Stachan said. “However, on the great shopping streets of the world, in cities such as London and New York, demand has continued to exceed supply.” TRD

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Retail real estate data indicated a mixed bag for Manhattan businesses this fall, as asking rates for storefront space fluctuated wildly across the island. The report showed that some neighborhoods declined, correcting from all-time high rates, while others fared better. The borough’s most venerated high-end shopping neighborhoods are holding on, even in the rough economy, with surprisingly strong numbers, according to the Fall Retail Report released today from the Real Estate Board of New York. Overall average asking rents for Manhattan retail space dropped 9 percent to $117 per square foot. The Fifth Avenue shopping corridor between 49th and 59th streets saw average asking rents for ground-floor retail space at $2,050 per square foot this fall, up 46 percent from fall 2008, while asking rates in the Meatpacking District went up 23 percent to $375 per square foot, and Soho rates jumped 12 percent to $483 per square foot.
The rates run contrary to widely reported negative news on retail lease rates in the city. Other key shopping regions, including Times Square and Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 47th streets, saw moderate year-over-year increases in their average asking rents for autumn this year as well, according to the report. TRD [more]