NEW YORK CITY- At an inaugural CBRE retail-focused market report for Q3 2011 Monday, the company’s retail experts detailed the drivers behind Manhattan’s thriving retail sector. These include the continued strength of the city’s tourism industry and a lack of available spaces in the several key areas—including the Meatpacking District, Fifth Avenue and Times Square.

“The key right now is that there’s still a lot of demand and what’s happening is as Fifth is getting bigger it’s creating this vacuum effect, where competitors of other brands have to be there now,” said Andrew Goldberg, EVP with CBRE’s New York Tri-State Region Retail Brokerage Services Group. “If you’re trying to build a business, especially if you’re not in the US or you want to be in the US, you have to be there.” Goldberg said that there doesn’t seem to be a ceiling at the moment on rents in that area.

Notable transactions in the Fifth Avenue area for Q3 2011 included Apple Inc.’s 23,000-square-foot lease in Grand Central Terminal and the 18,400 square feet that luxury retailer Dolce & Gabbana took at 717 Fifth Ave. While luxury brands like Dolce & Gabbana remain on Fifth, Goldberg said that mass market retailers were infiltrating the area now, including some international brands, like Uniqlo, that hadn’t been there before.