Retail rents in Causeway Bay are the world’s most expensive

Causeway Bay in Hong Kong is now home to the world’s most expensive retail space. According to the annual Cushman & Wakefield survey of high-street retail rents, Causeway Bay has overtaken New York’s Fifth Avenue for the top spot, with rents of US$2671 per sqft per year, or €24,606 per sqm per year.

The calculations were completed during the second quarter of this year.

What makes Causeway Bay’s performance on the list even more remarkable is that it was achieved as the retail rent market bottomed out after some three years of pressure from falling retail sales in the city. While that decline has turned around into positive growth over the past year, most property industry sources have said retail rents have not yet begun to climb again.

Third place on the list of the world’s most expensive retail space – and the most expensive strip in Europe – is London’s New Bond Street.

Of the Asia-Pacific locations, Japan’s Ginza takes sixth place this year, Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall seventh and Seoul’s Myeongdong district eighth. Those places are the same as last year. The only other change in the top 10 was Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris overtaking Milan’s Via Montenapoleone into fourth place.

The annual Main Streets Across The World report, celebrating its 30th anniversary, tracks 446 of the top retail streets around the globe and ranks the most expensive in 65 countries by prime rental value using Cushman & Wakefield’s proprietary data.