Fifth Avenue, still most expensive retail location worldwide
For the tenth year in a row, Fifth Avenue remains the most expensive retail location in the world.
For the tenth year in a row, Fifth Avenue, New York's famed shopping street, remains the most expensive retail location in the world.
The average cost to maintain shop on Fifth Avenue stands at $2,250 sq ft/yr, a 21.6 percent jump in rent from 2010, says Cushman & Wakefield in its annual "Main Streets Across the World" report.
Home to luxury retail meccas like Saks, Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany & Co., Barney's, and a handful of top-notch designer stores, Fifth Avenue is more than a street of breath-and-money-taking shopping. The street remains a symbol of exclusivity and power, narrating the sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-heartbreaking stories of those who reside in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
In Europe, the Avenue des Champs-Elysées bumped London's New Bond Street as the most expensive retail location on the continent, followed by the Via Montenapoleone in Milan. The reason for growth on the Champs-Elysées is largely attributed to the introduction of various big-named retailers this past year, said Christian Dubois, head of French retail services at Cushman, to WWD. And you know what they say, "Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées." (Champs-Elysées, Joe Dassin)
Other notable shifts in retail include Pitt Street Mall in Sydney with an impressive 33.3 percent jump in rent, bringing the Aussie shopping street to No. 4 on the list. In Asia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul made the top ten. These numbers are projected to stay the same or increase in 2012 due to continual interest generated in the East Asian retail sector from high-end designers.
View the top ten below.
World's ten most expensive shopping streets 2011
Source: Cushman & Wakefield (full ranking contained in the report), Courtesy of Business Wire