Northeast Market Reports Archives - REBusinessOnline

New York City Retailers Embrace Creative Footprints Amid Tighter Vacancy

Taylor Williams — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:29:00 +0000

“If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.” Martin Scorsese, Frank Sinatra and Jay-Z probably weren’t thinking about brick-and-mortar retail real estate when they penned and recorded the iconic song lyric, but that doesn’t make the expression any less applicable to that particular subject. The notion of merchandisers, restaurateurs and entertainment operators needing a certain and precise combination of savvy, moxie and pizzazz to succeed in New York City isn’t so much new as it is resurrected. That’s because it’s only been a few years since the asset class was left for dead. But retail resiliency is now an established and proven narrative that underpins commercial real estate investment. “Brick-and-mortar retail is truly here to stay,” proclaims Beth Rosen, executive vice president at RIPCO Real Estate. “Over the years, retailers have gotten so much more savvy and are now entering into smarter deals. There’s a lot of positive sentiment about the sector, which has seen its share of ups and downs. Rents got really out of control at one point, and if the economy wasn’t strong, retailers didn’t survive. But now, it’s really more about partnerships between tenants and landlords.” Limited Options That said, owners…

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Pandemic Changes Still Haunt New York City Property Tax Assessment Process

Taylor Williams — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 12:59:00 +0000

By Joel Marcus, senior partner, Marcus & Pollack LLP COVID-19 and the government-ordered shutdown had immediate negative consequences for all types of real estate, and New York City’s tax valuations took this into account. Damage from the pandemic still weighs down property values today, compounded by cultural shifts that sapped demand for commercial properties. Fair market values have evolved to reflect pervasive vacancy, building obsolescence and the heightened cost of serving tenants that have abundant alternatives to choose from. At the same time, work-from-home practices reduce space requirements. Retailers, restaurants and hotels see half the foot traffic they once had from nearby office buildings, adding to ongoing pressure from e-commerce and other challenges to create excess vacancy, constrained rental streams and declining market values. Valuation for property taxation has not evolved, however, judging by the revaluation tax assessments the city’s Department of Finance is issuing. Revaluations ostensibly update taxable property values to current fair market value. Yet New York’s assessors habitually inflate valuations by applying pre-pandemic rental rates and vacancy assumptions, ignoring the rents landlords are actually collecting today and turning a blind eye to fundamental changes in demand for commercial space. Old thinking persists among these assessors, and it…

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New Opportunities Arise for Industrial Investors in the Northeast

Taylor Williams — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:52:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams What do the phrases “owner-occupier,” “small-bay” and “mid-range WALT” have in common? They could potentially be obscure references to real-life inspirations behind songs on the new Taylor Swift album. But just in case that’s not the case, these terms also represent types of industrial investment plays that have become increasingly favorable among owners and prospective buyers in Northeast markets. The rising popularity of these deals attests to shifts in the broader landscape, i.e. — large-scale e-commerce and logistics facilities have been either overbuilt or priced to perfection in many areas. But the past 12 months have seen industrial deal volume in major Northeast markets regain traction. Although some — if not most — of that activity is tied to interest rates and geopolitics, the emergence of different deal types is nonetheless a positive indicator because it speaks to the creative approach that the investment community has taken in its return to the market. Unlike a few years ago, industrial real estate today is not a mindless beneficiary of both institutional and private debt and equity — a bottomless pit of capital flows. Tenants are no longer forced to write quasi-blank checks to owners just to secure crucial…

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Philadelphia Suburbs Draw Fresh Retail Blood

Taylor Williams — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 11:41:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams Retail and restaurant operators looking to enter or expand within the Philadelphia metro area are increasingly looking at suburban locations, and owners of those properties and seasoned brokers within the market both say there’s more to the trend than a simple lack of availability in key urban retail nodes. “The suburbs have been the preferred asset class — to some degree the first choice — for some retailers,” says Kari Glinski, vice president of asset management at regional owner-operator Federal Realty Investment Trust. “It started during COVID, when everybody was home, and with a lot of people living in the suburbs, we’ve seen strong demand. For well-located suburban properties, the leasing volume over the past three years has been at historical highs.” “Even over the past 12 to 24 months, supply has absolutely been constrained and should be even more constrained going forward,” Glinski continues. “For well-located properties backed by demand, new development can work. But right now, with where the cost of capital is, there’s not going to be a huge pop in new supply, thus creating a scarcity of well-located retail space.” Glinski acknowledges that since Federal Realty doesn’t operate many projects in the city,…

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Tenants, Landlords Feel Equal Sting of Barriers to Entry in Boston Retail Market

Taylor Williams — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:21:00 +0000

You can be a best-in-class operator with the coolest concept on the block, or you can be a well-capitalized landlord who knows all the right people, but if rapid, sustainable growth in the Boston retail market is what you seek, you might be SOL. According to local brokers, the high-demand, low-supply dynamic that currently exists in most major U.S. retail markets does not fully encapsulate the difficulties that tenants and landlords alike face in growing their footprints in the greater Boston area. As to why growing store counts or portfolios is so challenging in this market, the answer varies depending on who you ask. But a collective recap of all wide-ranging barriers to entry and disruptive forces at play paints a picture of a market that is borderline impenetrable for many tenants and perpetually stagnating for many landlords. “Boston remains an incredibly high-barrier-to-entry market,” says Zach Nitsche, director of retail capital markets in JLL’s Boston office. “A statistic we like to share with clients and industry people that haven’t historically invested in Boston and New England is that less than 5 percent of our total retail product has been constructed after the Global Financial Crisis. So far this year, the…

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Jumpstarted by Investment in Parks, Buffalo’s Waterfront District Sees New Development, Drives Broader City Advancement

Taylor Williams — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 12:01:00 +0000

By Tom Kucharski, CEO of Invest Buffalo Niagara When Ralph Wilson selected Buffalo to be the home of the new Bills franchise in the American Football League in the 1950s, it was one of the nation’s 10 highest populated cities, making it a natural fit. However, a general shift around the country away from traditional manufacturing as a major base for economic activity, combined with a number of other factors, led to a decline in the city’s employment and population bases in the ensuing decades. Over the past 25 years, Buffalo has reversed that trend, emerging as a city on the rise. The region recently saw its first population growth in over 70 years, according to the 2020 census. That growth has been spurred by a diversification of the local economy, attracting businesses in industries such as advanced manufacturing, food processing and life sciences. Companies were especially enticed by the region’s low cost of doing business and affordable energy supplied by the nearby Niagara River. A key to maintaining that momentum has been Buffalo’s self-reinvestment, including massive redevelopment projects centered around reclaiming the city’s waterfront district. The first wave of these efforts began about a decade ago. Specifically, prior to…

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Tech-Driven Experiences Reposition Northeast Malls for Next Generation of Shoppers

Taylor Williams — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:49:00 +0000

By Wick Zimmerman, CEO of Outside the Lines Inc. In the Northeast’s evolving commercial real estate landscape, mall owners and operators are navigating now-familiar headwinds: changing consumer behaviors, declining legacy retail brands and the sustained presence of e-commerce. Yet amid these pressures, a reinvention is underway. Malls are shedding their images as static retail venues and transforming into immersive, tech-enabled destinations — and it’s not traditional retail driving the charge. It’s Gen Z, a digitally native, experience-driven cohort that’s redefining what mall real estate can and should be. This shift presents both a challenge and an opportunity for regional retail stakeholders. The challenge? Retrofitting aging assets to meet evolving demands. The opportunity? Creating diversified, high-traffic destinations that outperform their square footages in terms of both revenue and relevance. From Shopping Centers to Engagement Anchors Once emblematic of suburban retail, malls across the Northeast — from Long Island to greater Boston — are increasingly being reimagined as hybridized spaces that combine shopping, entertainment and community programming. In densely populated, high-barrier markets, where new development is constrained, adaptive reuse initiatives are driving the charge. Class B and C malls, in particular, are being repositioned with new anchors — not department stores, but…

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Backfilling, Repurposing Spaces Can Alleviate Pressure on Greater New York City Retail Market

Taylor Williams — Wed, 28 May 2025 11:52:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams The retail markets throughout the greater New York City area have been starving for more quality space in the post-pandemic era, with ground-up supply gains rarely hitting the market outside of obligatory inclusions within apartment buildings and highly curated clusters at mixed-use developments. According to JLL’s latest market report on New York City, as of the first quarter of 2025, there were approximately 200 availabilities across Manhattan’s “prime” retail submarkets — a record low. Average asking rents leapt 7.4 percent between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the ensuing period, settling at a rate of $577 per square foot. The report identified traditionally ritzy retail corridors and hotspots such as Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, SoHo and Times Square as recipients of the “prime” label, also designating the Williamsburg district in Brooklyn as one such area. So when well-located spaces formerly occupied by retailers that are now defunct or aggressively downsizing become available, they tend to draw major, immediate interest. “Expanding retailers have substantial opportunities to backfill big box and junior spaces vacated by bankrupt chains,” says Mitzi Flexer, managing director in the New York City office of national brokerage firm Bradford Allen. Flexer says that a notable…

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Northeast Industrial Owners Find Creative Ways to Grow Supply

Taylor Williams — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 11:50:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams So much for “survive ’til ’25.” Until a couple months ago, industrial owners in the markets of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania had good reason to believe that 2025 would be a year in which ground-up development got back on track. And in those markets, which are defined by their density and sticky tenant demand, new supply is rarely a bad thing. According to the latest data available from Colliers, industrial vacancy rates in Philadelphia County, Southern New Jersey and the Lehigh Valley all rose in the fourth quarter by anywhere from 80 to 150 basis points. The regionwide vacancy rate stood at roughly 7 percent at the end of 2024, up from 6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023. The Colliers report also noted that while more than 6 million square feet of predominantly speculative product came on line in the first quarter of 2025, subsequent deliveries were forecast to decline by 40 to 50 percent in each ensuing quarter, “signaling a slowdown in supply for the remainder of the year.” Demand in the region remains healthy but has undoubtedly moderated from record levels that prevailed several years ago, according to Scott Mertz, SIOR, president…

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Northeast Reader Forecast Survey: Cautious Optimism for 2025

Taylor Williams — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 13:07:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams They may not be ready to do cartwheels and pop champagne, but when it comes to business expectations for 2025, commercial real estate professionals in the Northeast have a decidedly brighter outlook than in recent years. The last two years have been defined by barriers to economic growth on numerous levels. Pick your post-COVID geopolitical or macroeconomic poison — stubborn inflation, crushing interest rate hikes, multiple wars, restarting of global supply chains — all culminating with an incredibly heated U.S. presidential election. Is it any wonder that “survive till ’25” became the rallying cry of the commercial real estate industry? And while 2025 has arrived, the election has been decided and the Federal Reserve has strung together a series of small, yet meaningful cuts to short-term interest rates, the hangover from the aforementioned disruptors has not fully evaporated. Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office brings a fresh slate of questions about how certain policies — namely tariffs and mass deportations — will impact business at both the national and local levels. And the expectation-smashing December jobs report proved sufficient to immediately pause the Fed’s would-be pattern of rate cuts. And it’s only been one month. As…

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Seizing Opportunity: Office Demand, Conversions Offer Bright Spots as NYC Market Stabilizes

Taylor Williams — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 12:55:00 +0000

By Maya Khan, managing director, CBIZ Between the pandemic and the advent of hybrid work, it’s been a challenging stretch for the New York City office market. But savvy investors see skies clearing as interest rates come down and more employers call workers back to the office. The stabilizing market also offers new opportunities for office-to-residential conversions, thanks to recently enacted state and city incentives. In fact, office buildings sold for such purposes accounted for 50 percent of all development sales in Manhattan in the first half of 2024, according to data from Ariel Property Advisors. In what follows, we’ll take a deeper dive into those trends and look at how some New York real estate leaders who spoke at CBIZ’s “Manhattan to Main Street” panel are taking advantage of the current environment. The event, held in the fall of 2024, focused on the trillions of dollars in commercial real estate debt that is set to mature before 2028 and broader economic factors influencing the New York real estate market; it drew 85 attendees from the local real estate community. Opportunity on the Upswing It’s no secret that the Big Apple’s office sector has taken a beating in the past…

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Northern Attitude: Optimism for Retail

Taylor Williams — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 12:42:00 +0000

By Hayden Spiess Though uncertainty — economic, political and otherwise — has been a theme of 2024, retail real estate markets throughout the Northeast have proven itself reliably strong. Even certain headwinds like high construction costs and minimal quality space to accommodate growth have ultimately helped fuel robust fundamentals throughout the region. Now, brokers, investors and developers in those markets are looking ahead with optimism and faith in persisting tailwinds. Quality Space Shortage Vacant retail space in Northeast markets has been hard to come by this year, and professionals in the region aren’t expecting that to change anytime soon. The equation, they say, is simple. While retailers’ appetite for expansion has remained healthy, new construction and deliveries have been very limited. “Almost nothing has been built in the past 10 years,” says Dan Zelson, principal with Charter Realty. “There’s really just very little new product.” Steve Gillman, partner at The Shopping Center Group (TSCG), notes that while some smaller, single-tenant buildings may still be coming on line, “nobody is building a big strip center with 100,000 square feet.” “There’s that imbalance of supply and demand: demand by the retailer and lack of supply of space,” adds Daniel Taub, senior…

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To Increase Affordable Housing, New York State Must Make Changes

Taylor Williams — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 11:53:00 +0000

By Jason Penighetti, Esq., and Carol Rizzo, Esq. of Forchelli Deegan Terrana Together with high rent and exorbitant property values, the real property taxes that fund necessary services in New York State make housing affordability a significant concern for low- and middle-income residents. To ensure a sufficient supply of affordable housing, the state must address the ad valorem levy, whereby taxes are derived from a property’s market value. This article examines the critical interplay between New York’s property tax policies and housing affordability. While some taxing mechanisms hinder the development and availability of affordable housing, adjustments and a few additions to those practices have the potential to promote the affordable sector. Exemptions, Incentives New York’s real property tax system supports a complex framework of entities that rely significantly upon property tax levies to generate revenue and fund their budgets. Property taxes, assessed at the local level, support essential services such as public schools, police departments, libraries, highways, fire districts, open space preservation, out-of-county college tuition and the New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority, among others. To encourage the development of affordable housing and ease the burden that real property taxes can impose on developers and owners in the sector, New…

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New Jersey Industrial Market Begins Emergence From Investment Sales Lull

Taylor Williams — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 11:56:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams From an investment perspective, the New Jersey industrial market has plenty going for it: residential density throughout, proximity to major ports, high barriers to new development — but not even those fundamentals could shield the sector from macroeconomic variables that have caused deal volume and velocity to drop in recent years. Given the benefit of hindsight, the decline in industrial investment sales activity between late 2022 and early 2024 is not really surprising. Like most major industrial markets, those of both Northern and Southern New Jersey saw explosive demand for space in the early months of the pandemic as Americans sheltered in place and did their shopping online. Rents soared to record highs; cap rates compressed to historic lows. Institutional capital planted its flag in the Class A trophy space, and investors of all types duked it out for everything else. It was a hell of a party, but it couldn’t last. And when the lights began to come back on in the form of rising interest rates, sellers that didn’t have to sell generally chose not to. “Cap rates leveled off with the pricing discovery that went on when interest rates started rising,” explains Marc Isdaner,…

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A Developer’s Thoughts on Recent Changes to New York Laws Regarding Rent-Stabilized Apartments

Taylor Williams — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 12:01:00 +0000

By Francis Greenburger, founder, chairman & CEO, Time Equities Inc. The recent changes to New York laws regarding rent-stabilized apartments, included in the 2024 budget legislation and signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul, are a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the step is so small that the effect will be the same as standing still. Much of the initial commentary on 2024 housing law updates was about the so-called “good cause eviction” provisions, which have little to do with eviction but are instead a rebranding of rent control. In 2019, the legislature made significant changes to the rules governing rent-stabilized apartments. Most legislators who voted for this bill undoubtedly hoped to help New York State meet its affordable housing needs, but the opposite has happened. Thousands of low-cost, rent-stabilized apartments have since become vacant and remain so. Many of these apartments were occupied by tenants or families for 40 years or more. Apartments require capital investments periodically, and expectations for housing change dramatically over long periods. Renovating these units to meet modern standards requires significant investment, often mandated by housing code. Until the changes, building owners were willing to make these investments because they were permitted to increase…

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Despite Exceptional Demand, Boston Retail Market Faces Stagnating Forces

Taylor Williams — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 11:55:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams Heath Ledger, squaring off against Batman as The Joker, observed, “so this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immoveable object.” The late great actor’s metaphor for the stalemate that ensues when entities of equal and opposing power collide could almost be used to describe the current state of the Boston retail market. For while the sector continues to see high levels of tenant demand and the locale retains an array of proven demand drivers, the lack of new supply means that a ceiling of sorts on the growth of the market as a whole is taking shape. And the factors that form the foundation of this ceiling are very unlikely to bend, much less break. Minimal gains in new inventory have long plagued the Boston retail market, and the current scenario is no exception. According to data from CoStar Group, the market added 518,000 square feet of new space in the 12-month period that ended June 30 but absorbed approximately 1 million square feet of space during that time. Vacancy thus remains extremely tight at 2.3 percent. In formulating its latest report on the Boston retail market, CoStar noted that Beantown retailers would “largely…

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Northeast Mall Owners Recognize Importance of Communication in Redevelopments

Taylor Williams — Fri, 24 May 2024 12:00:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams If the whole mall redevelopment thing doesn’t work out, you can always become a marriage counselor. Perhaps some additional training and education would be needed for such a career transition to actually take place. But mall and shopping center owners who undertake high-risk redevelopments undoubtedly have firsthand appreciation of the importance of providing clear and courteous communication to the many different groups they deal with, from municipal leaders to longstanding tenants to onsite contract workers. That’s not to say that poor communication will necessarily kill a mall redevelopment. The inability to secure zoning overlay districts, civic partnerships for infrastructural improvements or feasibly priced construction loans in 2024 — these are variables over which mall owners have limited control and can actually sink these projects in their infancy. And those factors only come into play once the development team has done its due diligence and determined what uses and levels of density the project will feature. “After you’ve considered the macro-level needs of the market and the asset itself, you enter a phase that we call ‘the minefield map,’” says Steve Plenge, CEO of Pacific Retail Capital Partners. “Reciprocal easement agreements [that regulate design or tenancy issues] by…

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Industrial Development, Leasing Trend Smaller Throughout Northeast Markets

Taylor Williams — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 11:54:00 +0000

Sometimes smaller is better. “Sometimes” is of course the operative term in that controversial and wholly non-salacious statement. But in the context of industrial real estate, it’s becoming increasingly clear that at this point in the cycle, smaller buildings make more sense for developers to deliver as e-commerce and distribution users actively consolidate their footprints. “Most leases in New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the last 12 months were for less than 500,000 square feet, with 50,000 to 200,000 square feet being the ‘sweet spot,’ for leasing,” says Anthony Amadeo, executive vice president at New Jersey-based developer Woodmont Industrial Partners. “There is strong demand [for that product type], but other developers are now building it too, so we’re going to see some elevated competition in that space.” This activity is occurring across the country in varying degrees. But in markets like New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania, where sites that can support large-scale developments are extremely scarce and entitlement and permitting processes tend to be long and arduous, the trend is perhaps even more pronounced. Yet those longstanding characteristics of the Garden State and Lehigh Valley industrial markets are only partial reasons as to why new developments and deals are effectively downsizing. …

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Stability Returns to New York City Retail Market

Taylor Williams — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 12:49:00 +0000

By Taylor Williams Across Manhattan’s major retail corridors and pockets, leasing agents, operators and owners are all gaining greater clarity on what levels of rent various submarkets can bear and, by extension, how much spaces are truly worth. After three years of disruptions of the public health and financial variety — each devastating in its own right — a reset of sorts is a major windfall for the country’s largest and arguably most dynamic retail market. Closing deals is challenging enough when all parties are on the same page and the economy is stable. When markets are going through tumultuous phases of discovery in which perceived valuations of spaces fluctuate wildly, negotiations tend to flame out even more quickly — if they even get going at all. “A year ago in Manhattan, you could have two adjacent stores, and one might have been asking for $120 per square foot while the other wanted $220 per square foot,” says Chase Welles, partner at TSCG, an Atlanta-based brokerage and consulting firm that is active in New York City. “There’s certainly more definition relative to last year, and the range of asking rents in each submarket has narrowed.” “The market has become more…

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New York’s Small Business Lodging Crackdown — Another Ripple from a Big Wave

Taylor Williams — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 12:48:00 +0000

By Pam Knudsen, senior director of tax compliance services, Avalara While the dust has scarcely settled from a landmark ruling in New York City resulting in a massive crackdown on short-term rentals (STRs), the full extent of the fallout from the decision has yet to be fully grasped by many — and perhaps even by the city itself. Under the terms of Local Law 18, a resolution that passed earlier this year, hosts and owners of short-term rentals, including Airbnb, are now subject to tighter and stricter regulations. These include limits on numbers of guests, requirements to register with the city and obligations to more closely monitor guest behavior, among other regulations. The effective ban on short-term rentals will have considerable consequences on local economies, and more than anyone, it’s small lodging businesses that stand to be impacted by the resulting wave. But to fully understand the major impact this ban has on small businesses, we must first acknowledge that STRs should rightly be considered small businesses themselves. Much like any other small business, STRs are required by most communities to be licensed, registered and compliant with tax collection and remittance. Furthermore, the hosts and managers behind STRs operate in…

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