Fifth Ave. rents reach $1,500

New York City has again been ranked as the world’s most expensive shopping destination by brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. Along Fifth Avenue’s priciest stretch, between 49th and 59th streets, a 1,000 square foot lease costs about $1.5 million per year, an 11 percent increase over last year. Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay remained the second-most expensive, with average rents of $1,213 and the Champs Elys es in Paris remained third at $7,364. Khan Market in New Delhi rose from 24th to 16th, the list’s biggest climber for the second straight year.

Gene Spiegelman, Cushman & Wakefield’s executive director, said in a statement that retail rents for ground floor space on Fifth Avenue had doubled in five years. In Chicago, Oak Street saw the biggest rental increases, as rents for prime properties doubled in one year. John Strachan, Cushman & Wakefield’s global head of retail, said, “These locations are not just attracting local shoppers, but shoppers from around the world, whose very reason to travel is quite often to shop, while the driving force in many of the Asia Pacific locations is also the emergence of a middle class with money in their pockets.” TRD