The credit crunch of 2007 is having a negative effect on commercial debt, sales of investment property, and the real estate marketplace in general. Yet the impact on two segments, the rental apartment and retail markets, will be only limited in our region, industry leaders believe, and prominent retailers are searching for sites all over the city to establish a presence here.

One of the nation’s leading fashion specialty stores, Nordstrom, has been pushing hard to open a location in Manhattan. Industry leaders had expected the company to open on the West Side near the Shops at Columbus Circle. According to real estate sources, the chain is in serious talks for a site on the lower floors at what was the Drake Hotel, on East 56th Street and Park Avenue.

Next year, JCPenney will open its first Manhattan store in the very active Herald Square/Penn Station neighborhood. Its planned 150,000-square-foot store in Manhattan Mall on Sixth Avenue and West 33rd Street, owned by Vornado Realty Trust, would be less than a block from Macy’s, the world’s largest department store.

“All in all, the retail market is very vibrant, with rents continuing to trend upward. While others in the real estate community may speak of concern for future leasing, this is not the case for New York City retail,” the executive director of the retail group at Cushman & Wakefield, David Green, said. “American retailers need to be prepared for the coming competition from European and Asian retailers, several of whom are close to lease on prime New York City locations.”

A report issued last week by the consulting and valuation firm Delta Associates said the retail market “will feel the impact of tightening credit, and consumers will probably make the 2007 holiday selling season a disappointment to retailers. Nevertheless, we still find real opportunities in those metro areas with higher barriers to entry (like New York and San Francisco), or high growth rates, or both.”

National and international retailers are not limiting their site searches to Manhattan. The senior director at Cushman & Wakefield, Joanne Podell, said a number of prominent retailers have recently committed to entering the Manhattan retail marketplace for the first time. These include Hollister, a division of Abercrombie & Fitch, at 600 Broadway; Mango at 557 Broadway; CB2 at 451 Broadway, and Muji at two locations, the New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue and 41st Street and in SoHo at 441 Broadway.

“In Midtown, van Laack is opening at 340 Madison Ave. In the meatpacking district, it is Iris — an Italian retailer of footwear — and the Lower East side has Ernest Soong, apparel well known among the cognoscenti,” Ms. Podell said.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the fastest growing retailers in New York were electronic retailers such as the Wiz and Crazy Eddie. These chains are no longer in business, having been replaced in the 21st century by Best Buy and Circuit City. This fall, the new residents at 15 Central Park West will welcome a Best Buy, which has signed a 15-year lease for 46,000 square feet of space at 1880 Broadway. According to real estate sources, there is no firm commitment for the balance of the 39,000 square feet in the luxury project.

A few years ago, Best Buy opened on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street. Its archrival, Circuit City, will be opening at 521 Fifth Ave. at the corner of East 43rd Street in a building owned by S L Green Realty and the City Investment Fund. “After acquisition of the property in 2006, our partner was able to negotiate the early termination of all of the leases on the first and second floor retail tenants,” the president of the City Investment Fund, Thomas Lydon, said. “We then negotiated a transaction with Circuit City to build a 25,000-square-foot store on two levels of the building. While this involved closing a building entrance on Fifth Avenue for office tenants, it helped the partnership increase the cash flow with rents in excess of $150 per square feet.”

One of the most successful new retailers in the metropolitan region is Whole Foods Market. Earlier this year, Whole Foods opened its largest store in the Northeast at the Avalon Bay residential development on Christie Street and the Bowery. Next year, the chain will open in Lower Manhattan at the mixed-use building now rising at 101 Warren St. The building will also be home of the Lower Manhattan’s first Bed Bath & Beyond and a Barnes & Noble.

On the Upper West Side, a 56,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market will open in 2009 within the residential rental development at 808 Columbus Ave., a development of Stellar Management and the Chetrit Group.

According to real estate sources, development is proceeding at a snail’s pace for Brooklyn’s first Whole Foods scheduled to open in early 2009 on Third Street and Third Avenue in the Gowanus section. The 68,000-square-foot store was originally scheduled to open in spring 2008.

New Yorkers have embraced Trader Joe’s food market. In March 2006, Trader Joe’s arrived on East 14th Street near Third Avenue at Union Square. Next year, a 14,500-square-foot Trader Joe’s market will open at 130 Court St. on the corner of Atlantic Avenue in the former home of Sovereign Bank. In May 2006, Fairway supermarket opened a 52,000-square-foot at Van Brunt Street in Red Hook.

“Retailers are flooding into Brooklyn, following the influx of high-moneyed professionals into the multitude of new condos being built in and around downtown,” a vice president at Triangle Equities, Brett Goldman, said. “Smith Street, once well known only for its restaurants, is also becoming a stronger retail street. Watch and see what happens to Fulton Street in five years.”

Yuppies and eco-boomers are vying to reside in the fashionable Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. New additions to the boutique retailers include the Girdle Factory, Matter, and In God We Trust.

The residential boom of the past several years in Manhattan and the boroughs is helping the retailers. “The increase in retail development in New York City is largely a result of the incredibly strong residential market,” the chief operating officer of Citi Habitats, Gary Malin, said. “For most retailers, location is the most vital part of the decision to open a new store. Absent the recent crunch in the credit market, growth in Manhattan has been remarkably strong. Obviously, retailers are looking to establish a presence in the best possible locations within these neighborhoods; we see this happening in every neighborhood where there has been residential development. This trend should continue as population densities increase and retailers continue to seek to gain a foothold in these burgeoning markets.”

New York City residents will finally have an opportunity to shop at Ikea in 2008. Construction is under way for a 346,000-square-foot store with parking for 1,500 cars in Red Hook. The store is being built on 48 acres on the waterfront in the shadow of the Gowanus Expressway.

Before the end of the year, Manhattan’s third Apple Store will open at the corner of 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking district. The 52,000-square-foot, three-level store at 401 W. 14th St. previously housed the Western Beef supermarket.

Next year, Manhattan residents will have an opportunity to shop at Target. Construction is under way on its first store in Manhattan, at East River Plaza, a project of Blumenfeld Development Group and Forest City Ratner Companies. The 135,000-square-foot store will occupy the entire second floor of the five-story development, which will also house a 24-hour Home Depot and a Best Buy.

“Another source of new activity has been from existing retailers that are adding new units by changing their present size requirement and format,” Ms. Podell of Cushman & Wakefield said. “Perhaps this is to increase their opportunity for growth in otherwise unaffordable or less dense neighborhoods. Included among them are Staples stores at 4,000 square feet and Duane Reade with a scaled down version at 2,500 square feet. Whole Foods’s great success in New York has the superstar considering sites of 25,000 square feet as an accommodation to the limited floor plates of most retail spaces.”

I concur with Mr. Green of Cushman & Wakefield when he says: “All in all, the retail market is very vibrant in New York City, with rents to trend upward and growth in the foreseeable future.”

Mr. Stoler, a contributing editor to The New York Sun, is a television and radio broadcaster and a senior principal at a real estate investment fund. He can be reached at mstoler@newyorkrealestatetv.com.