NEW YORK CITY-It’s a mark of the continued vigor of Manhattan’s office leasing market that as a single brand-new property was responsible earlier this year for a slight uptick in the vacancy rate, so that same property—11 Times Square, where law firm Proskauer Rose in May committed to more than 400,000 square feet of headquarters space—is largely responsible for a month-to-month improvement. However, that same statistic can also be cited to show that the recovery is still fragile.

The 30-basis point decrease in Manhattan’s vacancy rate, from 13.1% in May to 12.8% last month, occurs as asking rents also tick downward, says Cassidy Turley. Robert Sammons, director of research for the services firm’s New York region, writes in the report that the overall average asking rent slid for the third consecutive month, easing to $47.95 per square foot from $48.42 per square foot in May. “The recent decline, however, can be tracked back to a rise in availability Downtown with its generally lower rent levels, as two Midtown submarkets actually recorded increases in asking prices,” Sammons writes.

Concurrently, James Delmonte, VP and director of research for Jones Lang LaSalle’s New York office, says in a releasing announcing JLL’s midyear report that leasing activity has been up considerably over the year thus far, “while the number of large blocks of space coming back to the market has slowed.” With demand finally outweighing supply, Delmonte says, “vacancy levels improved in some submarkets leading to positive absorption for the overall market. Encouraging data in the labor market bodes well for the market in the long term, but overall asking rents are likely to remain stationary for the remainder of the year.”