Kolkata’s Retail Market Records 48,500 sf Leasing in Q2 2025

News Desk, News Nation 360 : Cushman & Wakefield's Q2 2025 Retail Market Beat Report indicates that Kolkata logged around 48,500sqft of retail leasing in the quarter, up 30% from Q1 2025 and led mostly by fashion and food & beverage (F&B) brands, at 48% and 29% activity respectively, while prime high streets such as Theatre Road, Esplanade, and Dalhousie dominated the leasing spike due to an ongoing paucity of Grade A mall space and saw significant pickup by apparel and F&B brands, with additional activity by apparel and CDIT brands in sub-regions such as Dhakuria, Behala, and Serampore, while Acropolis Mall and Avani Riverside Mall saw transactions but without any new mall supply and two upcoming projects pushed into 2026, mall vacancies remained tight with city-wide vacancy falling to 6.6% and Grade A malls to an even lower 2.5%, showing the high demand for authentic premium space, and quoted mall and CBD rents remained stable with select main streets such as Gariahat, VIP Road, and Kankurgachi showing a 1-2% quarterly increase, while overall leasing volume for the first half of 2025 for Kolkata totaled around 86,000sqft—a 16% year-on-year fall—although 90% of the same leasing was still weighted on prime streets, reflecting the enduring pull of lifestyle and experience-driven retail in a city where mall development remains limited and competition for best high-street sites is becoming increasingly intense; at the national level, Q2 2025 saw 2.24 million square feet of retail leasing across the top eight cities in line with recent average volumes despite a gentle quarterly and yearly decline, with Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Delhi-NCR driving more than 70% of retail leasing, and for the first half of 2025, India's retail leasing totaled 4.61 MSF, up 17% year-on-year, as a testament to sustained confidence by retailers and robust consumer demand with malls taking a 45% share of quarterly leasing—a 42% increase from Q1 and the highest in over one year—while high-street locations, despite declining 26%, continued to lead with a 55% share, as evidence of persistent structural limitations in high-quality mall supply and unyielding demand for highly sought-after main street retail.