Rents fell in 14 of Manhattan’s 17 shopping corridors earlier this year, as retail landlords continue to look for a soft landing while asking rents slide from record highs.
On the glitzy stretch of Fifth Avenue between 49th and 57th streets, retail asking rents dipped two percent to $3,324 per square foot, according to figures from the Real Estate Board of New York’s Spring 2017 Manhattan Retail Report cited by the New York Post.
Last fall, rents in the corridor ranged from $3,000 to $4,500 per square foot. Now, they go from $2,700 to $3,500 per square foot.
To attract tenants to vacant storefronts, landlords are offering lower rents, flexible deal terms, money to build out spaces and other concessions that weren’t in the market until recently, the Post reported.
“The broad based decline we observed in ground floor retail average asking rents is indicative of the challenges the national retail market is facing,” REBNY president John Banks said.
The news comes as 37,000 professionals gather in Las Vegas for the International Council of Shopping Centers REcon expo, the biggest retail real estate event of the year.
REBNY noted that in smaller corridors with fewer stores, retailers are willing to head away from the main strip to ink deals on less expensive blocks. [NYP] – Rich Bockmann