Manhattan Retail Rents Hit 17-Year Low

Just in time for Black Friday, a new report says Manhattan’s retail rents are at their lowest point in 17 years. Soho rents have plummeted by more than a third since 2015, according to the Real Estate Board of New York, which said demand for brick-and-mortar retail has tanked due to the shift toward online shopping. A recent analysis by The Real Deal found large swaths of the area are sitting vacant. According to REBNY, while deals are getting done, “they favor parties willing to be flexible with deal structure, uses, and asking rent.” The steepest drop was on Bleecker Street between Seventh Avenue and Hudson Street, which saw a 25 percent drop in average asking rent to $351 per square foot. “The brokers really thought the rents overshot the neighborhood,” Brian Klimas, REBNY’s chief research economist, told the New York Post. Other hard-hid corridors include Soho, where asking rents peaks at $977 per foot in 2015 and are now 34 percent lower, at $644 per foot. On Madison Avenue between 57th and 72nd Streets, asking rents peaked at $1,709 per foot in 2014 and are now 27 percent lower at $1,348. And in Herald Square, asking rents have dropped 15 percent since last fall to $633 per foot. Read more at The Real Deal.