Big game of trading big spaces breaks out in Manhattan
Crate & Barrel left its 40,217-sq.-ft. to move a few blocks down on Lower Broadway in Manhattan.
Uniqlo will soon debut its new brand GU (based on the Japanese word for freedom, jiyu) at the former 510 Fifth Avenue space vacated by North Face, which will relocate across the street to 509 Fifth.
REI has announced that it would be closing its 40,000-sq.-ft. store on the corner of Lafayette and Houston streets in lower Manhattan, according to a report in the New York Post.
“The market is super strong and there’s a ton of deal velocity,” Brandon Singer, founder of the real estate leasing firm MONA, told the Post.
And all this leasing velocity has powered up at a time when retail rents in Manhattan have catapulted by nearly 17%, according to JLL.
“There’s a ton of tenants in the market and, for the first time in a long time, there are multiple proposals for spaces,” said Patrick A. Smith, vice chairman of JLL’s retail brokerage.
Leasing activity is also bustling on 34th Street, home of Macy’s flagship store. Zara signed a lease for an18,000-sq.-ft. space at 31 W. 34th St. and brokers told the Post that Primark plans to be opening a 78,000-sq.-ft. space to be vacated by Old Navy, which will be moving into a smaller location at 50 W. 34th St. in the base of Herald Towers.
Banana Republic’s 40,000 square feet at 17 W. 34th St., is up for grabs.
Ratcheting rents are leading some prominent retailers to buy the spaces they are locating in.
Ingka, the parent company of Ikea, invested $72 million to claim the 70,000-sq.-ft. space it will occupy in a tower at 570 Fifth Avenue in Midtown which is planned to open near the end of this decade. It also paid $213 million for the Nike space at 529 Broadway in Soho, where an Ikea store will occupy the ground level, topped by “premium” office spaces.
“In the last six weeks there’s been much more activity with paper trading and showings,” said Cushman & Wakefield vice chairman Stephen Soutendijk. “This is as good as it gets.”
