Fifth Avenue Retail Rents Are The Most Expensive in the World Yet Again

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Go into any store on Fifth Avenue between 49th and 60th streets right now, and place both your feet into a square tile. Assuming that that tile is about a square foot in area, it's costing whatever brand's store you're in approximately $3,500 a year to give you the privilege of standing in that tile. That's the new average annual rent per square foot on the shopping corridor, WWD says, beating out Hong Kong's Causeway Bay, Paris's Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and London's New Bond Street.

The data comes from a research report by real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield that's being released today, and doesn't contain anything too shocking; rents on the world's biggest streets are falling in more or less the same order as last time, and the average for Fifth Avenue has held the same despite a 3.6% year-on-year increase. That's a slowdown from the major price jump that happened between 2013 and 2014  — but let's be clear, $3,500 is certainly not chump change.

It remains to be seen how long this figure will remain the average, though, since reshuffling along the avenue likely signals price increases as new tenants replace the old. Furla and Microsoft recently debuted flagship and a huge Victoria's Secret is on deck, while recent exits with replacements yet to be announced include Bottega Veneta, de Beers, and FAO Schwarz. And that's not including Bulgari's recent restructuring — when the luxe jeweler resigned its lease last month, the price per square foot came to a crazy $5,500.