Manhattan Storefronts Go Dark as Retail Vacancies Jump to Most Since 2001

[marmar]

Manhattan Storefronts Hit Highest Retail Vacancy Rate Since '01
By Oshrat Carmiel and Alex Kowalski


July 17 (Bloomberg) -- When Barnes & Noble Inc. closed two stores on East 86th Street this year and Circuit City Stores Inc. shut another, neighborhood volunteers took the vacancies into their own hands. They sent e-mails to their favorite retailers asking them to rent the spaces.

Manhattan shopping strips from the Upper East Side to SoHo are flooded with empty storefronts. The borough’s second-quarter vacancy rate rose to 12.4 percent and now stands at the highest since 2001 as rising unemployment and the recession curb spending, according to data compiled by Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail leasing and sales division at Manhattan- based Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

“The consumer just stopped shopping,” Consolo said.

More than 15 percent of the 185 stores on Madison Avenue between 57th and 72nd streets are vacant or about to lose tenants, according to New York-based broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc. In SoHo, 11 percent of the 551 stores are listed as available for lease. About 9 percent of the 265 stores on the Upper West Side are without tenants or soon will be.

Rents may fall as much as 23 percent by the fourth quarter from a year earlier and may continue dropping through 2010 given the pace of unemployment and consumer demand, according to Sam Chandan, chief economist at research firm Real Estate Econometrics in New York. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aCUtsLdJ9k0M

[saltpoint]

1. "I've seen the lights go out on Broadway..."

[Beetwasher]

2. It's VERY Evident And Noticeable, All The Closed Stores

You can't help but notice all the empty storefronts.

[SoCalDem]

3. The flipside of a "consumer ecomony"..especially when it's 70% economy

People who fear loss of job, or who have lost a job will hold onto their money.

When a downturn happens, this is usually the result, but when people are up to their eyeballs in debt and THEN a downturn comes, they are "screwn"...

[marmar]

7. So true.......That's what's so different this time.

nt

[FarCenter]

4. The big test will be next February/March

Retailers currently open will try to make it through the back-to-school, fall shopping, and holiday seasons.

Depending on how those go, we may or may not see a lot of closures following the holidays.

[Warpy]

5. It's nice to know the pain is being shared

by the glitzier parts of the country, I guess. Strip malls around here have had that "meth mouth" appearance for the last couple of years as small businesses and restaurants have gone under. One very nice small strip mall had the misfortune of having Comp USA, Linens & Things, and Circuit City anchoring one end. It's one of the nicest new strip malls in the area and now it's half deserted, going to trash, weeds and broken glass.

Stand alone chain restaurants have been boarded up and surrounded by a 6 foot high chain link fence.

The worst part is that I think it's only beginning, that it will get much, much worse before it starts to get any better.

[marmar]

6. 'Strip malls around here have had that "meth mouth" appearance'

Classic.....I've got to borrow that the next time I talk about half-empty strip malls.

:thumbsup: