Report: Brooklyn Office Construction Slows

Developers will complete only 20,000 square feet of new office space this year, compared to 165,000 feet in 2006, according to a report out today from investment-sales brokerage Marcus & Millichap. This partly explains the borough's declining office vacancy rate, whci dropped from 9.9 percent at the end of 2006 to 8.3 percent right now.

And while the newly constructed office amount seems low, the report notes that two big variables dangle in Brooklyn' commercial future: Atlantic Yards and City Point (partially rendered above from the days when it was called Albee Square). Those developments there are scheduled to add 336,000 square feet and 125,000 square feet, respectively, of new office space to Brooklyn.

Also in the report: Average asking rents are forecast to have increased 4 percent this year to $26.43 a square foot--about one-third of the Manhattan average.