Foot Traffic Kept Prospect Heights' Empty Storefronts Low: Study

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A steady recovery from the coronavirus pandemic continued this summer on Brooklyn's major commercial corridors while parts of Manhattan still struggled to fill empty storefronts, a study found.

Prospect Heights' Flatbush Avenue was singled out this week in a study of Midtown Manhattan's real estate market, which found that residential areas in the outer boroughs have fared far better in their pandemic recovery than storefronts in office-dependent strips in Manhattan.

Only 16.8 percent of businesses stood empty on the Brooklyn corridor, compared to nearly a third of businesses that were vacant along major Manhattan streets, according to the study. Three other corridors in Brooklyn and Queens included in the study also had vacancy rates below 20 percent.

"With vacancy rates well below 20%, it is clear that retail in these local, service-oriented retail trade areas has enjoyed stronger foot traffic," researchers wrote.

In Prospect Heights, the vacancy rate means 22 of 131 storefronts studied on Flatbush were empty. Only two of those vacancies were on highly-coveted corner spots, according to the study.

In Grand Central and Midtown East, 93 of 311 storefronts stood empty, 15 of which were on the corner, the study found.

The vacancy study is one of several recently released by the Real Estate Board of New York about the retail landscape in the summer of 2021.

Another, which studied corridors specifically in Brooklyn, found that a swift recovery from the pandemic in residential areas in Brooklyn is likely to heat up given a delta variant-driven delay in workers heading back to the office.

The delay will send even more retailers to set up shop in Brooklyn rather than in office-dependent Manhattan, researchers said.

The latest surge will build on a growing demand for Brooklyn's commercial corridors that started earlier this year.

At the start of the year, retailers started snatching up an unprecedented amount of what is known as "second-generation space" that had become vacant during 2020 in Brooklyn, researchers said. Second-generation space refers to storefronts that already had a tenant, compared to newly-built spots that might require retailers to spend more on building out the space.

Across the borough, researchers found that restaurant, food and beverage businesses, quick service restaurants, fitness centers and gyms have been very active this year. More recently, national retailers have also started taking note of Brooklyn's high foot traffic, the report found.

Read the full Brooklyn report here.