The most expensive shopping street in the world is now in Milan: which cities it has overtaken

Milan’s Via Monte Napoleone has overtaken New York and London as the world’s most expensive shopping street for the first time, as the Italian city benefits from an influx of wealthy tourists and fierce competition for prime real estate among luxury brands, the Financial Times reports. UNN.

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The maximum rent that landlords can charge for luxury high-street retailers rose 11 per cent year-on-year to €20,000 per square meter per year, the highest rents for shops among all 138 global shopping destinations tracked by real estate group Cushman & Wakefield.

It is the first European city to top the list in 34 years.

Milan has seen an influx of high-spending tourists and a wave of foreign relocations as professionals and the ultra-rich have been lured by generous tax relief schemes.

Meanwhile, luxury retailers have stepped up competition for prime locations – paying big bucks to buy or lease retail space.

Kering, the luxury group that owns Gucci and Alexander McQueen, paid 1.3 billion euros to buy the Via Monte Napoleone building from Blackstone in April, the biggest real estate deal in Europe in two years.

Thomas Casolo, head of retail in Italy at Cushman & Wakefield, said luxury brands “have invested a lot to have the best location… the problem is that there are few opportunities”.

Chanel and Gucci opened new stores on Via Monte Napoleone last year. According to Cushman & Wakefield, rents on the street have increased by 30 percent over the past two years, while on New York’s Fifth Avenue – previously the most expensive street – rent growth in 2024 has remained flat. New York quickly recovered from the pandemic in 2022, but has seen slower growth since then.

Milan is relatively smaller than London, Paris or New York – the main shopping points are concentrated in one area around Via Monte Napoleone, which includes several streets.

“I think the reason why [орендна плата] continues to grow is that the street is very short compared to Fifth Avenue, the Champs Elysees or New Bond Street in London, Casolo said. “Milan has grown very, very quickly in terms of investment and international brands that want to open.”

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Italy’s historically austere financial capital, Milan has recently become a popular destination for tax-free luxury buyers from outside the EU, global investors and fashion and art figures.

2024 was a record year for tourism in the Lombardy region, which includes Lake Como, with more than 13 million arrivals in the first eight months of the year. Milan, the region’s capital, is now on track to surpass last year’s record of 8.5 million visitors, experts say.

This popularity among the ultra-rich has driven up real estate and hotel prices. This trend has a chain reaction in prestigious places in the historic center, where space for development is limited, the publication indicates.

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