The city’s retail market so far this year is performing its best in nearly a decade, according to data from JLL.
The amount of available retail space in Manhattan fell to 14.6% during the first three months of 2025, its lowest level since the brokerage firm started keeping track in 2017 and a half-point drop from last year’s now-shattered record of 15.1%. JLL’s analysis includes data tracked in prime retail submarkets across Manhattan, including Fifth and Madison avenues, Times Square and SoHo.
Retail’s success was buoyed in part by some major leases signed this year between January and the end of March, such as the German grocer Lidl inking a deal for 20,700 square feet at 135-155 E. 31st St. in the former space of a Bed Bath & Beyond location in Kips Bay. The move marked the European company’s first Manhattan location outside of Harlem.
The largest lease in Manhattan was for 75,000 square feet at Seaport’s Pier 17, signed by the entertainment experience group Meow Wolf for 20 years. Popular bridal designer Danielle Frankel also inked a 20,600 square-foot lease at 6 Harrison St. in Tribeca, marking its second location in the city and its first in Midtown.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the East river, Lidl signed another lease for 27,000 square feet of space at 597 Grand St. in East Williamsburg, according to JLL.
The numbers highlight the retail industry’s continued rebound since the initial wave of store closures and bankruptcies during the onset of Covid, and are a far cry not only from the rate of 28% that the city hit during the peak of the pandemic in 2021 but also the average rate of 21% in 2019, according to JLL.
One of the largest increases in asking rents was in SoHo, where the price per square foot for ground floor retail jumped nearly 14% since the last quarter of 2024 from $283 to $322, according to data from JLL. Other prime shopping corridors in Manhattan saw more marginal changes, or even decreases, including in Times Square, which dropped 8.7% to $1,383 and the Meatpacking District, which dropped 12.2% to $272, according to the report.
