Furnished office provider Jay Suites has opened its fourth Manhattan location, the company announced today, at 30 Broad Street in the Financial District. As previously reported by The Real Deal Jay Suites, which offers flexible-term office spaces, will occupy the entire 14th floor of the Lower Manhattan building, which sits on the corner of Exchange Place. The company signed a 13-year lease for the 16,000-square-foot space. The rent is in the low $30s per square foot, according to Juda Srour, Jay Suites’ president. TRD
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With just 6.9 million square feet of office space, Long Island City is one of the smallest and most fragile commercial markets in the city, and “was greatly affected by the downturn,” Howard Kesseler of Newmark Knight Frank told Crain’s. But, he noted that “the market is starting to recover in terms of leasing activity.” In 2010, average office rents dropped 1 percent, according to Newmark’s latest report on the submarket. But things started to improve for the Queens neighborhood early last year, when JetBlue Airways leased more than 200,000 square feet at the MetLife building on the northern edge of the area. [more]

Midtown New York City is no longer the priciest office market in the Americas, after Rio de Janeiro’s average rents climbed 47 percent from this time a year ago, according to a Cushman & Wakefield international report released today. The report, which calculates the total average occupancy cost, shows that even as Midtown’s average rent climbed 10 percent to $115 per square foot, Rio de Janiero’s jump to $120 per square foot knocked Midtown out of the top spot in the Americas. Rio de Janeiro is the first South American location to accomplish this. TRD [more]

From the January issue: Manhattan’s commercial market bounced along the bottom for much of the last 12 months. But the start of the New Year brings fresh signs that landlords, even in the lagging Downtown market, are gaining back some of the leverage they lost over the past two years.
Both Midtown and Midtown South are beginning 2011 with good news — the availability rate has declined by over 2 points in the last year and the average asking rents have risen. And in Lower Manhattan, the only district of the three where the availability rate remains higher than it was one year ago, brokers reported signs that landlords are winning back some leverage. [more]

From the December issue: It’s the French to the rescue — sort of. In the largest lease deal of the year, Paris-based financial firm Societe Generale last month agreed to take up to 560,000 square feet at 245 Park Avenue, moving east from offices on Sixth Avenue in Rockefeller Center. And also last month, Natixis, a Paris- and Boston-based money manager, signed a 16-year deal for 182,200 square feet on the third, fourth and fifth floors at 1251 Sixth Avenue. A source said the actual starting rent was $59 per foot, and included $60 per foot in landlord improvements and 12 months of free rent. [more]

Overall asking rent for Manhattan office space climbed slightly to $47.73 per square foot in August, from $47.57 per square foot in July, according to CB Richard Ellis’ latest market report. The vacancy rate in Manhattan also showed modest improvement, dropping gradually month-over-month to 13.4 percent, from 13.7 percent. Compared to August 2009, vacancy was down .5 percent. Of the borough’s prime office neighborhoods, the Downtown market struggled the most, showing its slowest leasing momentum since September 2009, as the vacancy rate remained steady at 14.3 percent. Midtown, however, showed promise: 10.55 million square feet has been leased so far this year, up 56 percent from the same time period last year. TRD

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Richard Ingwers

Commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield has
launched a new practice aimed at helping office-dwelling clients [more]

Midtown Manhattan office vacancies declined to 11.5 percent during the second quarter, from 12.6 percent in the first quarter, making it one of the most-improved central business districts in the country, according to data released today by Cushman & Wakefield. In the Midtown South and Downtown Manhattan business districts, meanwhile, office vacancies declined by just 0. [more]

The Manhattan office market is much healthier than it was a year ago, according to a CB Richard Ellis market report released today. The report, which measures 2010 market activity up until May 1, showed that 6.75 million square feet of office space has been leased so far this year, compared to the same time period in 2009 when 3.45 million square feet had been leased. [more]

Source: Jones Lang LaSalle

The overall office leasing market remained flat in Manhattan last month with Class A properties showing the most improvement and Class B properties continuing to lag, according to a new report covering April from commercial firm Jones Lang LaSalle (click here to see full report).

Asking rents in Class A properties rose in six of eight submarkets in Midtown and Downtown while Class B rates dropped in five of those eight areas, the report shows.

The uptick in asking rents in select submarkets is a sign of market stabilization, company vice president of research James Delmonte said, but not of a sustained period of rent increases. [more]