The Platinum Mile, a section of Interstate 287 in Westchester County, is fighting to reduce its Class A office vacancy rate, which now sits at 19 percent, up from 13 percent in 2002, the New York Times reported. To entice new tenants to the office park, the Platinum Mile must consider uses like education, housing, retail and recreation, experts said. “I think you’re going to see a lot of creative reuses for these buildings,” said Alfred Del Bello, chairman of the Westchester County Association. [more]

Office building vacancy in U.S. central business districts decreased to the lowest level in two years as companies expanded, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield, reported by Bloomberg News.

“It’s a reflection of the pent-up demand in the market,” Maria Sicola, head of Americas research at Cushman, told Bloomberg News. “Economic growth has been slow, but we are growing.”

The average vacancy rate in the second quarter was 13.9 percent, Cushman said, down from 14.6 percent in the first quarter and 14.8 percent for the same period a year ago. The rate last was lower in mid-2009, when it was 13.7 percent, the New York-based brokerage said. [more]

A microcosm of the national economic recovery as a whole, the U.S. office real estate market picked up 3.7 million more square feet of occupancy in the second quarter of 2011, which marked a fall back from the 5.5 million square feet gained in the first quarter. According to research by Reis, which studies 79 U.S. office markets, cited by the Wall Street Journal there’s still a gap of 126 million square feet of office space that needs to be filled to attain the total occupancy achieved in January 2008. “Relative to the overall inventory, it’s not a large amount,” said Ryan Severino, an economist at Reis. [more]

Manhattan developers are banking on a rise in demand for modern office space. More than 25 million square feet of projects are currently under construction or slated to begin in the next nine years, according to Bloomberg News, marking the city’s biggest decade for office development since the 1980s.

Only 7.4 million square feet of office space was developed in the 1990s and around 18.5 million in the 2000s.

Companies such as Boston Properties and Vornado Realty Trust are in negotiations with potential tenants and may even proceed with construction without securing leases, Bloomberg said. The average office vacancy rate fell to 12.2 percent as of April 30, after peaking at 13.5 percent in March 2010, according to Cassidy Turley. [more]

Source: Cassidy Turley

Manhattan office vacancy rate climbed in January, according to Cassidy Turley’s monthly market report, reaching 12.2 percent. This 20-basis-point climb, according to the report, is due in part to two major chunks of office real estate to hit the market last month: a 612,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by Pfizer at 685 Third Avenue between 43rd and 44th streets, and a 250,000-square-foot space at 1745 Broadway on the corner of 56th Street. The average asking rent, however, saw a slight month-over-month increase, reaching $48.12 per square foot from $47.66. TRD [more]

From the August issue: Manhattan’s residential real estate market might be feeling serious
pain, but many real estate insiders believe the city’s commercial
market will spend a much longer period in the doldrums.
While residential real estate is suffering from an oversupply of
inventory and a bursting price bubble largely spurred by a drop in
lending standards, commercial real estate is confronting obstacles on
the debt side that appear to be more entrenched. What’s more, experts
say the problems on the commercial side are in many ways just getting
started and will require far longer to sort themselves out.
For one, Manhattan’s office vacancy rate last month was 13.1
percent, and the commercial brokerage Colliers ABR is predicting it may
hit a high of 18 percent, significantly higher than the last downturn,
said Richard Bernstein, a vice chairman at the firm. [more]

U.S. office vacancy hit a four-year high at the end of the second quarter, according to statistics released today by Cushman & Wakefield. Central business district vacancy rose to 13.7 percent at the end of the quarter from 12.5 percent at the end of March. The vacancy rate last hit 13.7 percent in the second quarter of 2005, according to Cushman & Wakefield. But the rate is still lower than the 10-year high of 15.5 percent in the second and third quarters of 2003. Overall leasing activity declined 19 percent in the second quarter this year. Overall average asking rents have dropped to $38.25 per square foot from $39.50 per square foot at the end of the first quarter. TRD [more]