Manhattan office rents fall: Cushman

Average asking rents in Manhattan fell in April even as the vacancy rate declined on the heels of high leasing activity, a new report covering office leasing from commercial services firm Cushman & Wakefield shows.

The average asking rent in Manhattan fell by 40 cents per foot in April to $54.98 per square foot, even as the vacancy rate fell by .1 points to 11.5 percent, the company reported.

Leasing volume was high in the past two months. Activity in the two months of March and April has been the highest since June and July of 2007, Cushman reported.

“Despite the state of the broader economy, the Manhattan commercial real estate market has been relatively resilient over the past year,” Kenneth McCarthy, managing director of research for the New York region, said.

In spite of the recent vacancy decline, the rate was expected to increase for Manhattan overall, particularly Downtown, because of the addition of large blocks of space to the market, Joseph Harbert, COO of the company’s New York region, said in a statement. TRD