New Bond Street, in London’s Mayfair district, has overtaken Oxford Street for the first time in 20 years as the U.K.’s most expensive retail street, according to this year’s Main Streets Across The World report from Cushman & Wakefield.
Demand for the cachet of a New Bond Street address has fueled a 25 percent increase in rents in the last 12 months.
Globally, the cost of retail space has gone up by an average of 8 percent over the past year, with New York’s Fifth Avenue the world’s most expensive retail street.
In second position globally, after New York’s Fifth Avenue, is Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, which this year has leapfrogged Paris’ Avenue des Champs Elysées, now in third place. New Bond Street is fourth, followed by Tokyo’s Ginza.
The biggest rental rises in Europe have been in Købmagergade, in Copenhagen, where rents have gone up 40 percent in local currency terms. Rents in Budapest’s main Váci utca high street, Moscow’s Novy Arbat Street and London’s New Bond Street have all gone up 25 percent.
“The international race for space is continuing unabated. A growing number of global brands are vying for limited space on the pavements of the world’s top shopping destinations, whether Paris’s Avenue des Champs Elysées or London’s New Bond Street. This in turn is pushing up rents,” says Darren Yates, Cushman & Wakefield’s head of market analysis.