Some notable changes happened Downtown in the first quarter, he noted. “Downtown was perhaps the quietest of the three submarkets, activity was down. The thing that was missing was a big deal. But tenants are looking so I think that'll change.”

Despite the slow goings, the area's status as a value play may be taking a turn. “Pricing moved substantially, it's up 17% over Q1 of 2014,” Turchin declared. The metric came in at $56.94 per square foot for the first three months of the year, while it was $51.97 per square foot in the first quarter of last year.

In Midtown, leasing activity came in at 4.53 million square feet, 15% above the five-year quarterly average of 3.93 million square feet. The area's availability rate of 11.2% is up 70 basis points from last quarter but down that same amount from Q1 of 2014.

Meanwhile, Midtown South saw five blocks of space larger than 50,000 square feet come on the market this past quarter. The addition of these large blocks offset Midtown South's shrinking vacancy rate, which held steady at 5.5%, according to CBRE.

Landlords in that tight submarket need not worry though: the quarter's average asking rent of 66.61 per square foot—while down somewhat from its $66.38 per square foot level of Q4 2014—is up 6% over the first quarter of last year, when average asking rent came in at $63.05.