Last year’s leasing reinforced the Plaza District of Midtown as the prime breeding ground for high-priced locations even as the tony financial firms and tech industries are now willing to pay similar prime prices for the new projects of Hudson Yards and Midtown South’s Meatpacking District.
At 1.336 million square feet, the Plaza District signed the majority of the city’s 2.2 million square feet of sky-high leases in 2016 with starting rents over $100 per square foot, a new JLL hedge fund report found.
The 107 leases signed in 45 buildings was a drop from the peak of 138 transactions in 50 buildings in 2015. JLL cited decreased demand from financial firms. The leasing still topped the 97 leases signed in 2014.
Midtown trophy buildings average asking rent was $104.41 per square foot, slightly up from $103.61 a year earlier, and the vacancy rate rose to 8.8 percent from 7 percent at year end 2015, still better than Class A vacancy at 11.8 percent, up 1.4 points from 2015 .
