At the height of the recession, as most of the country struggled, SoHo thrived. Between 2010 and 2014, rents for stores in the former industrial district in Lower Manhattan soared by 75 percent, to an annual $860 a square foot, or $4.3 million a year for a 5,000-square-foot storefront, as national chains pushed into the neighborhood, willing to pay seemingly any price to get a piece of the action.

Those were the good old days.

Now, with the city’s unemployment at near historic lows and the economy humming along, empty storefronts dot SoHo’s streets, with 16 in the six-block stretch of Broadway between Houston and Canal Streets, the area’s retail spine. More stud the Belgian-blocked side streets, dark gaps between boutiques selling high fashion and designer furniture and the occasional remaining art gallery.

“We’re seeing no velocity in leasing,” said C. Bradley Mendelson, vice chairman of Colliers, a real estate brokerage, and a longtime retail broker. “No one’s taking space.”

Maybe not “no one”: T.J. Maxx, the discount department store chain more often found in suburban malls, has signed a deal for a large storefront on Broadway, according to real estate executives active in SoHo who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the deal and did not want to jeopardize their relationship with the building’s owner. And a new restaurant is finally scheduled to open in what had been the longtime home of a popular dive bar called Milady’s, at Prince and Thompson Streets. The bar served its last drink three years ago, and the spot has been vacant ever since.