Retail Rents In Prospect Heights Haven't Changed On Flatbush Ave., Report Says

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Business owners on one of Prospect Heights' busiest thoroughfares aren't facing the sort of rent hikes that some tenants in the neighborhood may be, according to a new report.

The average asking price for ground-floor retail rent held steady at $102 per square foot from winter 2016 to winter 2017, an analysis from the Real Estate Board of New York shows.

That number dipped a whole $1 during summer 2016 but was back up to $102 by this winter, according to the report.

The report looked at commercial real estate prices on 15 Brooklyn "corridors" and said rents increased in seven of them. In Prospect Heights, the report considered Flatbush Avenue from 5th Avenue to Grand Army Plaza.

The rents along there are significantly cheaper than those along the major corridors in Park Slope and Cobble Hill.

The report suggests that the Flatbush Avenue rents may be about to go up.

"Although the average asking rent in this corridor has been unchanged since the first REBNY Brooklyn
Retail Report in summer 2015, our Brooklyn Retail Report Advisory Group sees this corridor as having great
potential with 6,430 apartments being constructed at the nearby Pacific Park project," the report says.

The real estate report also cautions about reading too much into short-term changes.

"Although this report shows changes in average asking rents in most of the corridors analyzed, we must stress
that a change between two consecutive periods does not necessarily indicate a change in the market," the report says. "Such short-term fluctuations may only be the result of spaces coming on or off the market. However, as we build historical data, we can identify long-run trends that suggest a gradual market shift."

You can read the report in full here.

Image: Flatbush Avenue in September 2014, via Google Streetview