Westchester's sales triple 2003 volume.Cushman & Wakefield has released year-end 2004 statistics for Westchester County that indicate that leasing activity remained strong throughout the year, though vacancies rates bumped up due to former owner-occupied buildings returning to the market inventory. The 2004 year-end office market vacancy rate in Westchester County increased to 16.8%, up from 15.0% at the end of 2003. While overall demand remains strong in the market, large tenants continue to divest To deprive or take away. Divest is usually used in reference to the relinquishment of authority, power, property, or title. If, for example, an individual is disinherited, he or she is divested of the right to inherit money. large properties, including 1133 Westchester Avenue (IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) ), 800 Westchester Avenue (Altria) and 1 Reader's Digest Reader's Digest U.S.-based monthly magazine. Founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace, it was first published in 1922 as a digest of articles of topical interest and entertainment value condensed from other periodicals. Road (Reader's Digest). In effect, the 2.0 million square feet added to inventory and 1.1 million square feet added to availabilities acts as new construction and saturates the market with apparent new space. Accordingly, overall absorption in Westchester County totaled negative 1,121,763 sf, essentially canceling out the positive absorption from the previous two years. These statistics, however, do not reflect the true health Westchester County. Tenants in the market are already exhibiting interest in 800 Westchester Avenue, where a lease for 52,960 sf was signed at the end of the fourth quarter. Additionally, several tenants are lined up in the queue Pronounced "Q." A temporary holding place for data. See queuing, message queue and print queue. (programming) queue - A first-in first-out data structure used to sequence objects. Objects are added to the tail of the queue ("enqueued") and taken off the head ("dequeued"). to absorb available space in the building. "All things considered All Things Considered (ATC) is a news radio program in the United States, broadcast on the National Public Radio network. It was the first news program on the network, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets. , Westchester County ended up with a very solid year and we will move into 2005 with a substantial amount of leasing activity in the transactional pipeline," said Jim Fagan, senior managing director and head of Cushman & Wakefield's Westchester County, Fairfield County Fairfield County is the name of three counties in the United States:
"We expect a number of significant leases to close in the first half of next year--a strong sign that Westchester continues to move in a positive direction." Leasing activity totaled 2.1 msf, surpassing the 2003 total of 1.9 msf. Continuing a trend from 2003, Westchester County experienced a large number of deals in excess of 5,000 sf, though many of these were intra-county moves rather than relocations from outside the County. Topping the list of 2004 transactions was Reader's Digest 204,689 sf lease at 1 Reader's Digest Road in Pleasantville. Other large transactions included: 132,000 sf (including a 54,000 sf expansion) by Kraft Foods Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) is the largest food and beverage company headquartered in North America and the second largest in the world after Nestlé SA. The Philip Morris Company (now known as Altria Group), a company that produces tobacco products, acquired Kraft for at 120 White Plains Road in Tarrytown; 84,266 sf by Argent ar·gent n. 1. Heraldry The metal silver, represented by the color white. 2. Archaic Silver or something resembling it. Mortgage at 44 South Broadway in the White Plains CBD (Component Based Development) Building applications with components (objects). See component software. CBD - component based development ; and 64,000 sf by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide at 1133 Westchester Avenue in White Plains Non-CBD. The Westchester County investment market was significantly more active in 2004 versus 2003, nearly tripling the total sales volume. The increase was primarily due to more properties being brought to market this year, rather than a huge increase in capital demand. Topping off the stellar 2004 investment market was the fourth quarter sale of White Plains Plaza at 445 Hamilton Avenue and 1 North Broadway, which sold for $60 million, or $80 psf. The overall vacancy rate in the White Plains CBD dropped from 18.7% at the end of 2003 to its current level of 14.9%, though leasing activity in 2004 was only slightly higher than 2003, totaling 514,733 sf versus 488,388 sf, respectively. Overall absorption was also strong with positive 146,852 sf, the second straight year of gains. Additionally, the mixed-use White Plains City Center, a retail and apartment complex comprised of 495,000 sf, was completed in 2004. On the labor front, the most recent Westchester County unemployment rate was 3.5%, which was less than the state total of 4.7%. As in many regions across the nation, however, sluggish job growth stalled stall 1 n. 1. A compartment for one domestic animal in a barn or shed. 2. a. A booth, cubicle, or stand used by a vendor, as at a market. b. any true economic gains, increasing just 0.8% in 2004. In Westchester County the goods producing sector and the public sector both shed jobs during the year. |
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