Cassidy Turley releases August Manhattan Market Report

Cassidy Turley, a leading commercial real estate services provider in the U.S., released its August Manhattan Market Report, which indicates that for the fourth consecutive month, Manhattan posted positive absorption with 275,433 s/f. The availability rate stood still at 11.4% for the second month. Class A asking rents remained stable, losing only $0.05 per s/f to $69.28, while class B asking rents continued to soar, up 2.5% this month to $52.19 per s/f. Despite the recent positive notes to the Manhattan office market, office employment numbers dipped for the second consecutive month in June with 2,600 less office jobs than April's 1.25 million. Both professional services and information services, two of the biggest growth areas to date, contributed to this decline with 3,900 and 2,900 less jobs respectively. Midtown had a slow month compared to the previous three when an average of 650,000 s/f of positive absorption posted. Space return outpaced demand as 175,526 s/f of negative absorption was posted. Availability nudged up 10 basis points to 11.5%, due to three large blocks of space being placed on the market. Midtown South is still leading the recovery, despite a 10 basis point rise in availability this month. This increase is mostly attributable to a 181,783 s/f Li & Fung sublease at the Empire State Building. Class A asking rents remained flat in July, with a small drop of $0.18 per s/f to $67.12, while class B rents continued its upward trend and jumped $0.99 to $59.79 per s/f. Availability Downtown dipped 60 basis points in July to 14%. With just over 500,000 s/f of positive absorption posted in July, nearly half of the 1.1 million s/f of negative absorption from the first six months of the year was wiped out. Class A asking rents dipped $0.10 per s/f to $52.44, and class B asking rents $0.13 to $35.96 per s/f. "Despite the annual slowdown during the summer months, the Manhattan market continues on a positive trajectory," said Peter Hennessy, president, New York Tri-State Region Cassidy Turley. "The improvements should continue come September and the start of the fourth quarter."