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

[mnhtnbb]

1. Well, no surprise. Americans have gone from negative savings rate to 7%.

That's a helluva lot of bucks not available for consumption.

[National Steel 27]

2. "Faith Hope Consolo"?

How appropriate is that?

There are some things you couldn't make up if you tried.

Sounds like an Emo band from San Antonio.