While retail rents have remained fairly stable across most of Manhattan, Crain’s cited a CBRE report that found asking rents along Fifth Avenue between 42nd and 49th Streets to have grown 47 percent between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of this year. The average asking rent for the area is now $954 per square foot.
Brokers attribute the skyrocketing increases to a “trickle-down” affect from the ten block stretch of Fifth Avenue directly to the north, where asking retail rents average $2,500 per square foot. Further, new tenants like H&M, Zara and Urban Outfitters have descended upon the once-forlorn strip and boosted its profile. Some believe the rents will continue to come closer to those just to the north.
The report also found asking rents to have rose 12 percent to $533 per foot in Soho and 20 percent along Madison Avenue between 57th and 72nd streets to $1,212 per foot. Meanwhile, rents dropped 14 percent to $218 per foot along Third Avenue between 60th and 72nd streets. [Crain’s]