Russell Street in Causeway Bay, once the world’s most expensive retail strip, has again recorded a major lease exceeding HK$1 million per month, reflecting a recent pickup in prime retail leasing activity, although rents remain well below their peak levels.
An 8,740-square-foot shop at 22-24 Russell Street, owned by Emperor International (0163), was recently leased to a retail tenant for HK$1.5 million per month, or about HK$172 per sq ft.
Italian luxury lingerie brand La Perla leased the site starting in 2015 for a record HK$7.5 million per month, or HK$858 per square foot, marking the peak of retail rents at the time. However, the brand exited in October 2020 when its lease expired, after tourism to Hong Kong collapsed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
After that, the property was leased out on short-term contracts multiple times. The current rent is more than double the average for previous short-term leases, but still about 80 percent below the market’s peak in 2015.
Russell Street in Hong Kong overtook New York’s Fifth Avenue in 2012 to become the world’s most expensive retail street, according to US property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield.
As rents plummeted, brands like Burberry and Kiehl’s exited the Causeway Bay retail district, paving the way for mass-market retailers like cosmetics chains, mobile accessory shops and currency exchange stores.
Futu Securities signed a lease for a 7,100-square-foot retail space on Russell Street in early April, paying around HK$1.4 million monthly. The rent is roughly 40 percent higher than what the previous tenant, a Transformers-themed restaurant, paid, but still more than 88 percent below the peak levels. The restaurant had occupied the space since May 2022, during the height of the pandemic, on a three-year lease at HK$1 million per month before exiting the space.
STAFF REPORTER
