Midtown office leasing has grown so anemic and space so plentiful that a new CB Richard Ellis snapshot reports that the submarket is basically its emptiest in 15 years. New office space put up for lease in March drove midtown’s availability rate to 14.2 percent, its “highest … since July 1994.”

It’s not alchemy. Companies are shedding employees; spaces are opening. This includes up to 10.13 million square feet of available sublease space, roughly one-third of midtown’s availability.

Also, leasing activity has grown anemic: It totaled 600,000 square feet in March, less than half of the five-year monthly average and marking the 14th consecutive month of below-average leasing in midtown. This even after landlords lowered asking rents on much of the available space.

A bright spot in midtown leasing? According to CBRE, leasing activity “has been generally consistent over the past five months, at about 50 percent of the historical average.”

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