NEW YORK CITY—Newmark Grubb Knight Frank reports that Manhattan's office availability rate fell to 11.3% at the end of the first quarter, the lowest rate since the fourth quarter of 2008 when the rate stood at 11.2%.
The Manhattan office availability rate was 12.2% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2013. Direct availability, which had stayed at around 44 million square feet for four years, fell by 2.7 million square feet in the first quarter.
The brokerage firm in its First Quarter Manhattan Office Market report states that the average asking rent in Manhattan was flat as compared to three months ago, standing at $62.46 per-square-foot. A year ago, the average asking rent in Manhattan was $59.55 per-square-foot.
Overall, increases in asking rents in Midtown ($73.26 per-square-foot) and Downtown ($50.55 per-square-foot) were offset by lower rents in Midtown South that declined to $56.31 per-square-foot.
Newmark Grubb Knight Frank states that it expects similar fundamentals in the second quarter, although the inclusion of 1 World Trade Center could skew availability.
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John Jordan
John Jordan is a veteran journalist with 36 years of print and digital media experience.
