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New York’s Fifth Avenue Has World’s Priciest Retail Rents

Stretch of Midtown Manhattan street takes top spot from Hong Kong

Published

1 year ago

December 4, 2022

VMSD Staff

iStock, SergeYatunin

An 11-block slice of New York’s Fifth Avenue has displaced a shopping district in Hong Kong as the world’s most expensive street on which to rent retail space. That’s according to real estate consulting firm Cushman & Wakefield’s newly released “Main Streets Across the World” report, which said rents on Fifth Avenue (between 49th and 60th streets) averaged $2,000 per square foot/per year.

Hong Kong dropped out of the top spot to second place, with Tsim Sha Tsui district overtaking Causeway Bay in 2020 to become the city-state’s most expensive precinct, with rents of $1436 per square foot/per year.

Within the Americas, all but one of the top 10 most-expensive markets are in the U.S. Here are the rankings of those markets, including New York at the top:

1	New York City	Upper Fifth Avenue (49th to 60th Sts)	$2,000
2	Los Angeles	Rodeo Drive (Beverly Hills)	$900
3	San Francisco	Union Square	$495
4	Las Vegas	Las Vegas Blvd.	$425
5	Chicago	North Michigan Avenue	$425
6	Boston	Newbury Street	$400
7	Toronto	Bloor Street	$250
8	Miami	Lincoln Road	$225
9	Palm Beach	Worth Avenue	$200
10	Austin	South Congress (SoCo)	$200

Based on such findings, the report says “‘retail apocalypse’ is no longer the term du jour. While we still face economic volatility, the conversation has shifted to retail’s future — an omnichannel world in which the most successful brands understand their customers on a new level and meet them where they are.”

Download the full report here.