NYC landlords eager to fill retail space

Luxury retail brand corridors, such as Madison Avenue and Upper Fifth Avenue in New York City, are recording limited retail leasing activity, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The lavish shopping corridor of Upper Fifth Avenue, 49th–60th streets, has an equal amount of stores offering retail space for lease on both a direct and a sublease basis. And with asking rents down 10.9 percent in the area, it is indicative of landlords’ eagerness to fill potentially vacant and available boutique storefronts on this world-known avenue.

At midyear, almost all retail statistical submarkets, including the high markets of Fifth Avenue, SoHo, Third Avenue, Meatpacking, Madison Avenue, Upper West Side, Flatiron, Herald Square/West 34th Street, and Lower Manhattan registered reduced asking rents due to stores continually coming to market at lower asking rents. In Midtown South, the coveted SoHo submarket continued its asking rent descent, closing the second quarter at $418 per square