It guarantees to be a banner 2026 for the Large Apple’s industrial actual property — a minimum of on paper.
However since this column has been the clarion of optimism all 12 months, excuse our indulging the darkish facet right this moment.
First, the excellent news. As we have been typically first to report, the barometers of a market that’s not solely wholesome however thriving have been plentiful. They included shrinking vacancies, sharply diminished sublease availability, slowly rising rents and a return-to-office wave that’s the envy of each different US metropolis.
There have been main expansions by Jane Road Capital, Guggenheim and Amazon. Bloomberg LP’s extensions of all three of its Manhattan leases till 2040 proclaimed confidence. Deliberate new towers at 350 Park Ave. and 343 Madison Ave. obtained their inexperienced lights. The primary $1 billion-plus constructing sale in 5 years came about at 590 Madison Ave.
Accommodations are thriving. Accelerated residential conversions cleansed the market of scores of obsolescent, Class-B properties.
So the place’s the draw back?
For all of the deliberate new developments, too many distinguished websites lie barren the place builders wait on financing or anchor-tenant miracles that may by no means come.
London, town that’s New York’s main competitor, doesn’t have half as many ugly holes within the floor with no plans filed as Manhattan does.
There are a minimum of 5 of them on West 57th Road alone; on three blocks alongside First Avenue beneath the UN; a number of prime blocks of Midtown Madison and Park avenues; and on thriving Sixth Avenue between West forty fourth and forty fifth streets.
There are extra empty holes and vacant heaps downtown than will be counted — none extra seen than the some-day website of Two World Commerce Middle. Till Larry Silverstein indicators Amex or one other anchor tenant to get the challenge off the bottom, the 16-acre website’s restoration will stay achingly incomplete.
Within the “not vacant however troubled” class are three prime chunks of cityscape.
The previous Roosevelt Lodge’s future is means up within the air as proprietor Pakistan Worldwide Airways fidgets over what to do with the empty hulk after JLL walked away from its sale-agent function final summer season.
The beloved however antiquated Chrysler Constructing will proceed to lose luster till landowner Cooper Union finds a developer that may afford the skyrocketing value of the bottom lease.
The South Road Seaport took on water after Howard Hughes Corp. spun it off into Seaport Leisure Group. The Tin Constructing is scaling again; cheesy “immersive” points of interest encroach on home-grown eating places; and the next-door lot at 250 Water St. is a query mark since SEG offered it off final summer season.
The retail panorama falls effectively wanting cheery surveys by the Actual Property Board of New York, industrial brokerages and business-improvement districts which cite diminished “availabilities” — however overlook what New Yorkers really see.
The previous Barneys at 660 Madison Ave. stays a darkish hulk after six years. Brooks Brothers’ opening at 195 Broadway and Printemps at 100 Wall St. belie innumerable empty areas close by. “Prime Retail for Lease” indicators are in every single place, and nonetheless appear to outnumber shops from Broadway on the Higher West Facet to corridors in central Greenwich Village and Flatiron. There are even enormous empty storefronts on Fifth Avenue within the East 50s and on East forty second Road.
However maybe the darkest cloud is environmental zealotry over “100-year flood” fears that may deny the 5 boroughs entry to the historic foundation for his or her current-day prosperity: the waterfront.
A southern portion of Battery Park Metropolis is already ruined by the “redesign” of Wagner Park. Even worse sea-wall building is already previous the planning levels at many river and harbor areas.
At this price, even the Coney Island ocean would possibly finally be blocked from view.
