The Colliers report, issued on Tuesday, says that Manhattan's class A vacancy rate climbed 70 basis points to 8.7% in November, the highest since the 9% figure recorded for September '05. In Midtown, the vacancy rate reached 9.3% in November, up from 8.5% in October and the highest since the 9.8% of August 2004, according to Colliers. Availability was up in all six Midtown submarkets, with the Plaza district crossing the 10% threshold for the first time since January '05.

Midtown South's availability rate increased at a lesser rate, up one percentage point to 9.5% with 175,225 square feet added back to the market. More than one-third of the 2,710,711 square feet added back to the Downtown market YTD occurred in November, with 1.11 million square feet of negative net absorption during the month.

Sublease availability shot up 11.5% during November alone and is up 149% YTD while direct availability jumped 6.3% during November, a YTD increase of 37.4%, according to Colliers. November saw a number of significant leasing deals; however, according to Colliers, they were generally either renewals, such as Viacom's 1.3-million-square-foot deal at 1515 Broadway, or "no growth" relocations.