Retail rents are falling across Manhattan

Justin Sullivan/Getty

A global slowdown at in-store sales is hurting some of New York’s top retail corridors, with rental prices in much of the city trending downward, according to the Real Estate Board of New York.

Rents in 10 of Manhattan’s top 12 retail corridors dropped over the past year, according to real estate group’s New York Spring Retail Report.

Soho was the hardest hit neighborhood, with average asking rents hitting $824 per square foot compared to $977 in spring 2015, a 16 percent drop, the New York Post reported.

Average rents on West 34th Street between Fifth and Seventh avenues fell by 11 percent, to $890 per square foot from $1,000 last year, the report said. Average prices on Madison Avenue between 57th and 72nd streets dropped 3 percent, to $1,644 per square foot.

Two corridors bucked the trend. Rents climbed 39 percent to $326 per square foot on Lower Broadway between Battery Park and Chambers Street, and a more modest 7 percent, to $513 per foot, on Bleeker Street between Seventh Avenue South and Hudson Street.

To explain the overall price declines, the report cited a general national and international retail slowdown. Manhattan’s retail fundamentals, it said, remained strong.

“The changing economic landscape has not been immediately felt across all Manhattan corridors,” said REBNY president John Bank in a statement, “but our Retail Advisory Group suggests that the next twelve months will be a decisive period in which we may see more asking rent price adjustments.” [NYP] – Ariel Stulberg

NOW WATCH: We asked an astronaut if aliens exist — and his answer was spot on