First-quarter commercial property leasing in Manhattan rose 84 percent over last year, a major real estate group said Tuesday in the latest signal of recovery in the sector.

Cushman & Wakefield said increased leasing and investment in the first three months of 2010 showed movement to "capitalize on opportunities ahead of a recovery."

New leasing totaled 5.7 million square feet (529,547 square meters), up 84 percent from the first quarter of 2009.

"In the first quarter we saw the continuation of a trend that began in the second half of 2009 as companies started to pull the trigger on leasing decisions," Joseph Harbert, Cushman & Wakefield?s chief operating officer for the New York area, said.

The first quarter saw 3.3 billion dollars of Manhattan commercial property sold, almost the same as all property sold in the city's busiest neighborhood in 2009, said the report.

Manhattan, which houses much of the US financial, media and other office space-intensive industries, was hit hard by the 2008 crash on Wall Street and national recession.

Earlier this month, figures showed improvements in the residential housing market for the first quarter, with apartment sales rising 99.5 percent year-on-year, although at relatively low prices.

Commercial space vacancies rose to 11.6 percent in March from 11.3 percent in February as a result of new construction, Cushman & Wakefield said.

Average rents of 55.38 dollars a square foot (0.092 square meter), the report said, dipped slightly from the end of last year and are now at their lowest in three years -- and 24 percent down from a peak of 72.97 dollars in the third quarter of 2008.