It’s good to see Mayor Menino try to drum up interest in the ever growing array of empty storefronts along Newbury Street and the Fenway.

The mayor led a tour of some of the city’s top retail strips, pointing out some of the shops available for rent.

City Hall is offering up for free ad space worth $5,000 to tenants who sign leases in the next six months.

All that is well and good, but there also needs to be a frank discussion about retail rental rates in various Boston shopping hot spots as well.

I hit upon this subject a couple months in my B&T column, when I looked at one of the hidden ills of Downtown Crossing.

Some building owners there would rather with empty, unrented space in hopes of eventually landing a tenant ready to shell out sky-high rents.

It’s no secret that a similar problem can be found on Newbury Street, where landlords have been notorious over the years for holding out for big rents.

Still, there are some hopeful signs that this may be changing.

The Herald reports that one of the Newbury Street’s biggest landlords has cut rents 20 percent in a bid to fill storefronts.

That’s a good start.

My bet is that lowering rents, not giving away ad space, is the best way to fill some of those empty storefronts.

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