Commercial landlords cut rent, offer incentives

In order to attract commercial tenants, landlords are cutting rent, offering incentives and trying to appeal to a wider audience of businesses. The managers of the Fashion Tower, at 499 Seventh Avenue, have shed the name of the building and now refer to it by its address alone, hoping the property won’t be pigeonholed as a single tenant-type tower. At 650 Madison Avenue, the landlord dropped the asking rent to $85 per square foot from $100, and broke floors into smaller office suites. And many companies offering sublease space are handing over fully furnished offices. Average Manhattan asking rents are down 11 percent from their peak last year, to $65 a square foot, but brokers say the amounts that landlords are actually accepting have plunged by between 25 percent and 30 percent.