Mayor Rudy Giuliani will join Fortune magazine officials to announce New York is ranked "the number one best city for business." It will happen this afternoon at 2 p.m. in the Nasdaq Visitors Center in the Lobby Level Broadcast Studio at 4 Times Square on the corner of 43rd Street and Broadway. According to some who spoke informally with GlobeSt.com, this can only help the value of property here. Then it couldn't come at a better time as Wall Street marches toward an economic downturn.
Last week was a bad one on Wall Street, with traders panicking over debates raging between the Bush camp and voters in Palm Spring County, FL seeking the ability from the courts to recast their votes in the presidential election. Nasdaq was down Friday by 171.36, its lowest since Nov. 3, 1999. Overall for the week it fell 422.59. The Dow Jones fell 231.30 and Standard & Poor's fell 34.16 on Friday. For the week the Dow fell 215 and the S&P fell 60.71.
Williams Real Estate is one of several companies whose reports on market activity have received ink recently. This report states the Midtown South vacancy rate has increased by approximately 0.4% to 4.4%. It does show Manhattan's overall vacancy rate has dropped from 5.1% to 4.8%, but significantly less than half of free space has been absorbed as compared with the beginning of the year.
These findings are not really new. As early as Sept. 14, GlobeSt.com published an interview with Citi Habitats chairman and president Andrew Heiberger, who said he noticed a slowing when "the Nasdaq dipped in the spring and the Fed hiked interest rates. Some people lost paper wealth--I mean a lot of money. So now they're hesitant to buy." At the time he believed, "The overall economy is slowing, so the really pricey multifamily sales are slowing. Then the rentals will slow down."
As early as September, articles published by GlobeSt.com quoted insiders predicting recession. Others continue to argue this is all a healthy correction and the strength of New York's financial industry is strong so there is enough demand for property. With Fortune's confidence in the city, there's one strong vote in their favor.
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