PETITION

Is anything available in New York City for less than $5? Some of you are about to find out.

Yesterday, Bloomberg noted the following:

Retail rents are tumbling in Manhattan, especially in the toniest neighborhoods.
In the area around the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue, home to the borough’s priciest retail real estate, rents fell 13.5 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, the largest decline among the 16 neighborhoods tracked by brokerage CBRE Group Inc. The drop was due in part to a single space that had its price cut from $3,500 a square foot to $2,500, CBRE said in a report Tuesday.
Tenants have the upper hand in New York as landlords contend with a record number of empty storefronts. Across Manhattan, 143 retail slots have sat vacant for the past year, and rents have been reduced on more than half of those spaces, CBRE said. Property owners are increasingly willing to negotiate flexible terms in an effort to get tenants to commit to leases, according to the report.

Apparently a number of commercial real estate brokers didn’t get the memo. Brokers reportedly lashed out last week upon news that General Growth Properties ($GGP) leased out a large space to Five Below, a discount consumer products chain, at 530 Fifth Avenue. Per Commercial Observer:

Some brokers expressed disappointment with the tenant selection.
“It’s not a Fifth Avenue-type tenant. Everyone is pissed,” one broker said of the deal because of the nature of the tenant on a prized part of Fifth Avenue. He added: “There goes the neighborhood.” A more suitable location, the broker said, would have been south of 42nd Street.
“Not sure this was the tenant surrounding landlords with available space were hoping for,” said Jeffrey Roseman, a vice chairman at Newmark Knight Frank Retail, who was not involved in the deal.

Wait. What? Currently, there’s literally a JPMorgan Chase Bank, a Walgreens and a Kaffe 1668 right there there. Who among that lot can rightfully object?

What these brokers don’t appear to grasp is that the brick-and-mortar landscape has dramatically changed. There aren’t very many tenant options for landlords — at least not for 10,800 square foot spaces (which is what this is). And there’s no benefit to any of the other retailers in the vicinity of the space for it to remain vacant. Apropos, as noted in Commercial Observer, one broker appears to get it:

“Five Below is the updated variety store or five-and-dime store of our day—something for everyone,” said Faith Hope Consolo, the chairman of the retail leasing and sales division at Douglas Elliman. “As for the character or image of the street, that is not really affected or important. The key is that a big space was absorbed and this type of tenant will generate traffic.”

Our thoughts exactly. Those adhering to a New York City of yesteryear clearly haven’t noticed the influx of coffee shops, pharmacies and banks on every corner. Who else would take such a large space? Toys R Us?

What? Too soon?