NEW YORK, NY—Returning space continued to flood the Manhattan office market in February as another 10 office buildings each added 45,000 square feet or more to the available supply, according to a monthly report from DTZ.

Despite 21 buildings coming to market with significant availabilities this year, the overall availability rate dipped 10 basis points to 9.8%. The bulk of the space returns occurred in class B buildings, which accounted for eight of the aforementioned 10 buildings and posted the second consecutive month of negative absorption for Manhattan class B.

With many tenants driven towards value over the last four years, the 937,617 square feet of negative absorption posted this year will create more affordable opportunities in the market. After posting over 2 million square feet of negative absorption in January, class A space bounced back by recording over 889,000 square feet of positive absorption.

Average Asking Rents for Manhattan were: Class A, $76.66 per square foot; Class B, $59.59 per square foot and overall, $69.87 per square foot.

In Midtown, the availability rate inched up another 10 basis points to 10.1%, up from a recent low of 9.7% at the end of 2014.

Similar to the overall Manhattan market trend in February, Midtown accounted for seven of the 10 large space returns, with six of the seven in class B buildings. This led to over 677,000 square feet of negative absorption for class B space, while class A space absorbed all the space added to the market in January.

Class A posted over 606,000 square feet of positive absorption and was fueled mostly by the Bloomberg 152,935-square-foot lease at 919 Third Avenue and the 96,780 square feet of expansion space leased by Publicis at 1675 Broadway. Despite Midtown availability rising, asking rents continue to increase, with class A up $0.17 to $85.14 per square foot and class B up a mere $0.03 to $61.05 per square foot.

Meanwhile, Midtown South continues to outperform the rest of the market, as the availability rate dropped 40 basis points in February to 6.5%. The available supply dipped below 6 million square feet for the first time since 2000. There is only 5.7 million square feet available in Midtown South, which equals one-fifth of the Midtown and one-half of the Downtown available supplies.

The area's Flatiron/Union Square submarket was the only submarket to post negative absorption, as 181,950 square feet came on the market at 50 W. 23rd St., but leasing activity throughout the rest of Midtown South outpaced space returns and led to 338,382 square feet of positive absorption.

Meanwhile, the Downtown office market was back on track after posting almost 1.5 million square feet of negative absorption in January. The availability rate dipped 20 basis points to 12.2 percent, as 206,739 square feet of positive absorption was posted in February. This can be mostly attributed to the lease signed by WeWork at 85 Broad Street for 240,000 square feet.

In spite of the positive overall trends, the World Trade submarket's availability rate jumped to over 14% for the first time in almost a year, as 319,644 square feet of NYMEX space at 1 North End Ave. became available. As new product continues to become available Downtown, asking rents continue to soar. Class A asking rents are up to $61.40 per square foot and have surpassed historical highs from 2008. Class B asking rents are also up, but at $43.76 per square foot, they are still slightly off record levels.