Cassidy Turley Feeling “Blah” About Manhattan Market in March
By Daniel Edward Rosen April 4, 2012 2:00 pm
reprintsCassidy Turley described the month of March for the Manhattan commercial real estate market, in which just over 2.0 million square feet was leased, as being decidedly “blah.”
“Any way you want to put it, not a lot seemed to be going on during the month,” the company says in its March 2012 Manhattan Office Market Report, released earlier today.
The vacancy rate for the 461 million square foot market (for all classes) jumped up 20 basis points to 10.6 percent, Cassidy Turley reports. For the 238 million square feet of Class A space, the vacancy rate went up 30 basis points to 9.8 percent.
This didn’t have an impact on asking rents, though. The average asking rents increased by 2 percent to $53.07 per square foot. For Class A space, the asking rent went up by 1 percent to $65.23 per square foot.
But fear not, says Cassidy Turley. That blah feeling should be a temporary one.
“This stall in Manhattan should be of no major long-term concern,” said the report. “Expect the market trends to improve as the year progresses due to further lease expirations and strong office employment numbers.”
The Midtown South market performed strongly in March, climbing 20 basis points to finish the month with a 9 percent overall vacancy rate. The asking rent also shot up to $43.69, the market’s highest in over three years.
The Downtown market’s vacancy rate for Class A space jumped up 50 basis points to 8.9 percent, the highest its been since August 2011. The average asking rent for Class A space fell, though, going down 2.6 percent to $41.86 percent.
Yesterday morning, Cushman & Wakefield (CWK) announced its findings from its 2012 first quarter report. The firm said that the information and technology industries, which had been unified into one group, had accounted for 27.8 percent of square footage in 2012. Financial services firms leased only 26 percent in the year to date.
drosen@observer.com
