Manhattan Asking Rents Poised for Steep Takeoff?

Another market report from Colliers ABR. One thing that strikes me as significant is that JP Morgan Chase has snapped up a lot of office space in the past year and how this is likely helping to drive up rents for remaining office space as supply dwindles. It would be interesting to look at JP Morgan Chase and see where and why all this expansion is happening.

The document is a 2 page .pdf file that is followed by tables showing other noteworthy leases and sales and an overview of the Manhattan market. Most of the text is below along with a link to the full document.
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Asking Rents Poised for Steep Takeoff?

NEW YORK - February 2006

The Manhattan commercial real estate market bounced back from a tepid January with the class A average asking rent climbing sharply and appearing to pick up serious momentum, jumping 4.0% over the past month to $53.01/sf from $50.97/sf. Geographically, this increase was all-inclusive as strengthening occurred in all three major submarkets – Midtown, Midtown South and Downtown. This is the highest average asking rent in just over four years (dating back to the $53.23/sf in
January 2002) and the largest month-over-month increase in almost six years (since between May and June 2000 when asking rents climbed 5.0% to $56.92/sf from $54.22/sf). There is certainly room for further rent increases as the record remains 16.0% higher than the current figure (topping out at $61.48/sf in April 2001 when the class A vacancy rate was just 4.9%). The class A vacancy rate improved to 7.6% in February from 7.9% in January, though slightly higher than the 7.4% in December, prior to inventory additions. Meanwhile, sublease space fell to its lowest point since May 2001 (and below the 5-mm-sf mark for the first time since May 2001 as
well). There remain a significant number of tenants (of all sizes) in the market within various industries including finance, law, media/entertainment, not-for-profit and government, not only desirous of renewing or relocating but, more importantly, expanding.