News
STATS! SURVIVAL! STRATEGY!
April 8, 2009
| Yesterday, we were at three great events (with more pics onFacebook): First stop, Michael's Restaurant on W. 52nd, where Cushman & Wakefield execs gave us their quarterly NYC market review. Economy expert Ken McCarthy offered relatively good news: the pace of declines have slowed, and he's optimistic we'll see improvement this year. |
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| Ken with Josh Kuriloff, who represented Willis Group Holdings in leasing at Chicago's Sears Tower.(You can partially thank him for renaming the building Willis Tower, though he gets less flack than Windy City colleagues.) Ken adds that unemployment continues to drop, but he'll be watching for recovery once jobless claims slow down. In the end, NYC should expect a loss of 295k peak-to-trough, according to the Mayor's latest estimates. |
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| New York metro region COO Joe Harbert (with Mitch Konsker) gave the sector lowdown. Sublease space more than doubled from Q1 '08, accounting for 27.6% of available Manhattan office space. The availability increase hit Midtown hardest at 56.4%, which also saw a 51.4% leasing decrease and a 6% rental rate decline. However,Downtown was buoyed by an 18.7% leasing increase. Investment sales are down, but a period of low activity will not sustain. And the retail market has retreated to '07 levels, but Joe reminds us that was a good year. |
