The latest report from commercial real estate firm CBRE states that Manhattan’s retail vacancies have hit a record high, and a stretch of the Upper West Side has been contributing quite a bit to those numbers, Crain’s first reported.
During the second quarter of this year, there were 25 empty storefronts between 72nd and 86th Street. This makes it the third emptiest retail corridor which CBRE tracks. The area with the second most vacancies was between Battery Park and Chambers Street along Broadway, with 27. The emptiest area was Upper Madison Avenue, with 55 empty stores.
At the same time, the third largest lease transaction took place on the UWS, with CityMD leasing a 12,429 square foot space at 1841 Broadway.
The report also lists the UWS as the fourth most active neighborhood in terms of how much space was leased, which it tracks at 24,114 total square feet (between 7 lease transactions).
The average price per square foot for commercial spaces between 72nd and 86th Streets on Broadway was $229 during Q2 – a slight rise from $226 during Q1 but a large drop from the same period one year ago, when it was $243.
CBRE tracks 16 major retail corridors in the city, and the collective number of vacancies between them rose from 275 in Q1 to 290 in Q2.
“Leasing velocity in Manhattan decelerated in the second quarter of 2021, marking eight consecutive quarters of decline … The average retail asking rent in Manhattan’s prime 16 retail corridors dropped 10.7% year-over-year.”
