Times Square and REBNY’s Steve Spinola

The bulk of major retail corridors in Manhattan have seen high annual jumps in average asking rents — as much as 55 percent compared to the same period last year, according to a Real Estate Board of New York retail market report issued today. [more]

JCPenney signed a lease for roughly 38,000 square feet of retail space at 200 Lafayette Street.

From the January issue: As tourists continued to flock to Gotham in record numbers, New York City retail saw a banner 2012: Nordstrom announced it would take 285,000 square feet of space at Extell’s under-construction One57 tower, and one of the retail condos at the base of 666 Fifth Avenue sold to Vornado for $707 million. In the third quarter of last year alone, retail rents shot up 30 percent in the Herald Square area and 23 percent both on Upper Fifth Avenue and in Times Square, according to data from the CBRE Group. And the Lower Fifth Avenue market — the stretch from 42nd to 48th streets that has recently seen higher-end retailers replace souvenir shops — continued to burgeon, adding clothing designers Joe Fresh, Ted Baker and Aritzia to its list of increasingly up-market tenants. [more]

Eastern Consolidated’s chief economist Barbara Byrne Denham and 666 Fifth Avenue, which help retail jumo 729 percent, with Vornado’s $707.8 million purchase.

Manhattan’s retail property sales volume surged in the fourth quarter, posting sevenfold increase,  its strongest performance since 2007, according to preliminary data from Eastern Consolidated, cited by the New York Observer. The final quarter of 2012 saw nearly $13 billion in sales volume, which is the best increase since record-breaking sales volumes — fueled fears of impending capital gains taxes – were posted. The market peaked in the second quarter of 2007 at $19 billion. “This was definitely fiscal-driven growth,” Barbara Byrne Denham, Eastern Consolidated’s chief economist, said.  “Sellers wanted to cash out and buyers knew it, so they were eager to come to the table as well.”… [more]

Steven Spinola, president of REBNY, and Mary Ann Tighe, REBNY chairperson

Average asking rents are continuing to climb in some major Manhattan retail corridors due to high demand and a limited availability of space, according to the Real Estate Board of New York’s fall Manhattan retail market report, which was released today. Overall in Manhattan, however, asking rents were down 4 percent from the spring and 2 percent year-over-year due to prime spaces already being occupied by tenants.

One of the areas that stands out is lower Fifth Avenue, between 42nd and 49th streets. In fall 2012, average asking rents ticked in at $1,021, up 13 percent from the spring 2012 figure of $900 and a cool 51 percent increase from the same period last year when the average came in at $675. [more]