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MAJOR PROJECTS UPDATE
ALLIANCE FOR DOWNTOWN NEW YORK
LOWER MANHATTAN REAL ESTATE MARKET OVERVIEW
Q1 2016
COMMERCIAL OFFICE MARKET LEASING VELOCITY UP YEAR-OVER-YEAR
smaller relocation commitments this quarter. This quarter also saw the addition of several small but notable fashion tenants to the market. Many of these deals were in class B and C space, where strong demand and limited supply have led to significantly increased rents and steadily declining vacancy.
Lower Manhattan’s office market experienced a quiet start to the year, with slow leasing activity and a halt to the trend of rising overall asking rents. New leases totaled just 1 million square feet, down slightly from the first quarter of 2015, which itself was a slow quarter. However, strong leasing velocity (which measures renewals in addition to new leasing) still buoyed the downtown market. A total of 2.1 million square feet of deals were signed, according to CBRE, representing a 61.5 percent increase year over year. Most of this stems from McGraw Hill Financial’s renewal at 55 Water Street. The parent company of Standard & Poor’s Rating Services executed the largest deal Manhattan-wide this quarter and the largest in Lower Manhattan since 2013. Still, with limited overall activity in this quarter, the Class A market saw a slight uptick in vacancy along with stagnant, albeit historically high, asking rents.
KEY TENANTS RENEW Many of the largest first quarter deals reflected renewals by Lower Manhattan’s signature sectors including FIRE and Government. McGraw Hill Financial signed a 900,027-squarefoot early renewal at 55 Water Street, where they are consolidating its Manhattan real estate footprint and will fully occupy the space by 2020. The financial information and analytics company vacated 413,000 square feet in its namesake Midtown building, 1221 Sixth Avenue, and moved into Standard & Poor’s space last year. McGraw Hill has also been consolidating from 2 Penn Plaza where it once had approximately 500,000 square feet but now holds about 85,000 square feet. It will occupy that property until 2020, when the company will fully relocate all operations to 55 Water Street.
A continuing bright spot in the market was provided by the TAMI (Technology, Advertising, Media and Information) sectors, which contributed a 100,000-square-foot expansion and several
LOWER MANHATTAN LEASING VELOCITY, Q1 2015 - Q1 2016 Source: CBRE
2.5 Million
2.1 Million 2.0 Million
1.5 Million
1.5 Million 1.3 Million
1.3 Million 970,000
1.0 Million
500,000
0
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
2015 Renewal
Lower Manhattan Real Estate Market Overview| Q1 2016
Q1 2016
New Activity
1