NEW YORK CITY—The Real Estate Board of New York has issued its first ever Brooklyn retail report, a new study that will analyze ground floor asking rents in 15 of the borough's top retail corridors. In the inaugural third quarter 2015 Brooklyn retail report, Williamsburg's Bedford Avenue—between Grand Street and North 12th Street—pulled in the highest average asking rent of $347 per square foot.
“Brooklyn is hot as hot can be,” REBNY president John Banks declared Tuesday at a press conference. “The time has come for this report as Brooklyn has reached maturity as a market. We'll be doing this every six months and that will hopefully create a database over time that will allow us to examine trends.”
The joint effort between REBNY's Brooklyn and retail committees will be published twice per year on the first and third quarters of the year, analyzing the average, median, and range in asking rent for ground floor space in each retail corridor. The corridors analyzed in REBNY's Brooklyn retail report are within 10 neighborhoods spanning from Greenpoint in the north to Bay Ridge in the south.
The first report showed that Downtown Brooklyn's Fulton Mall, between Boerum Place and Flatbush Avenue, held the second highest average asking rent of $287 per square foot. Greenpoint's Franklin Street, between Meserole Avenue and Commercial Street, recorded the lowest average asking rent in the third quarter at $63 per square foot.
Meanwhile, Cobble Hill's Court Street, between Atlantic Avenue and Carroll Street, registered an average asking rent of $162 per square foot while Brooklyn Heights' Montague Street, between Hicks Street and Cadman Plaza, achieved an average asking rent of $150 per square foot.
“This data-driven asking rent report will be a useful tool for monitoring the continued growth of the borough and will help retailers from all industries make more informed decisions to accommodate their real estate needs,” said Robin Abrams of the Lansco Corp., a prior chair of REBNY's retail leasing committee and the subcommittee that launched REBNY's first Manhattan retail report.
Added Mitzi Flexer, director and broker at Cushman & Wakefield and a member of REBNY's retail leasing committee, “Without reliable information on the Brooklyn retail leasing market, some tenants may be hesitant to move forward with opening new locations and expanding their brands in the borough.”
Commenting on specific pockets of the borough, she noted, “Sunset Park and South Slope are going to explode. From Canal Street in Manhattan it's a 10 to 15 minute trip and there's new residential development, people are snapping up brownstones and limestones, the schools are strong and Industry City is right there.”
She continued, “Incubators coming to industry city are going to transform the area's residential and retail landscape and you have big Manhattan retailers and manufacturers coming in. It's a big deal.”
Also on the horizon, added Flexer, “More retail is coming to the area around Brooklyn College, on Flatbush Avenue, where rents are $85 per square foot.
Of REBNY's new report, said Nicole Liebman, director at Cushman and a member of REBNY's commercial brokerage Brooklyn committee, “With the collaboration of tracked data based on a number of key market indicators, brokers, owners and tenants will have a more thorough understanding of the Brooklyn retail environment, which has become a critical market for established retailers.”
In order to provide rich data, future iterations of REBNY's Brooklyn retail report will provide up-to-date asking rent data, comparing the current average, median, and range in asking rents for these 15 corridors to those from six months and 12 months prior.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
