By Al Barbarino 12/04/12 7:30am

ICSC

cover for web

Retail’s Big Renaissance

With more than 50 million tourists running amok each year, consumers feeling recharged, and throngs of foreign retailers streaming in, Manhattan’s prime retail corridors are not only booming—they’re expanding.

High rents and low vacancies in prime corridors are changing the invisible boundary lines that once separated high- and low-end sections of Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Greenwich Village and other retail corridors throughout the city, analysts and real estate brokers claim.

“When these big names and huge chains move into these areas, people just love to follow them,” said Jeffrey Roseman, an executive vice president and principal with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s retail division. “They become anchors and magnets to pull others.”

Just as the earlier success of Urban Outfitters and H&M sparked further expansion below 49th Street on Fifth Avenue, and Alfred Dunhill and watchmaker Panerai boosted retail appeal below 57th Street on Madison when they emerged in 2009, aspirational clothing retailers are now doing the same in Greenwich Village. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11:13am

Lease Beat

sam ash

Sam Ash to Relocate to West 34th Street

Music store Sam Ash, a longtime mainstay on West 48th Street, is set to consolidate its flagship Manhattan stores into a new retail space at 333 W. 34th Street, it was announced this morning.

The music store will take a nearly 30,000 square foot space at the SL Green-owned building, as wasJeffrey Roseman and Gregg Gropper of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented SL Green in the lease deal.  Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 7:15am

Power Broker

Kenneth Hochhauser.

A Metric Mind: With Data Analysis the Norm, Winick Realty Looks to Kenneth Hochhauser for the “Secret Sauce”

Years before Chipotle Mexican Grill became a calorie-packed part of Midtown’s daily diet, the burrito maker was mapping a path into the New York City marketplace.

In 2002, after launching in Washington D.C. and other suburban markets, Chipotle turned to Kenneth Hochhauser and Jeffrey Roseman, who subsequently turned to internal data accumulated by the former Newmark Knight Frank to determine an ideal location for Chipotle’s flagship store in New York City.

“They understood their business model, in that the bulk of their business came during lunch, so we focused on where the heaviest lunch concentration would have been,” recalled Mr. Hochhauser.

Now an executive vice president with the Winick Realty Group, Mr. Hochhauser, 45, recalled his days at Newmark Knight Frank pairing data with Chipotle’s own statistical analysis to determine where best to expand the brand. And considering his knowledge of Geographic Information Systems—a complicated theory used to better understand patterns and trends—Mr. Hochhauser found what he was looking for. Read More

By Carl Gaines 6/22/12 3:33pm

Lease Beat

1491 Third Avenue.

1491 Third Goes from Pop-Up to Paint with New Lease

Janovic Plaza, a subsidiary of Benjamin Moore & Co., will have some redecorating of its own to do soon. The retailer, which specializes in paints and other decorating odds and ends, has signed for about 4,200 square feet of space at 1491 Third Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The building is four stories and 24,000 square feet. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 5/23/12 12:00pm

RECon: Las Vegas

Jonathan Roseman

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Jeffrey Roseman on New York and Las Vegas

Jeffrey Roseman is an executive vice president and principal of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s retail business and is a top retail leasing executive in the city. Mr. Roseman, who has handled a number of prominent leases over his long career, spoke to The Commercial Observer about how ICSC remains important for top-tier dealmakers, how retail isn’t going away despite the growth of e-commerce and what recent departures from Newmark means both to him and as part an industrywide shake-up in brokerage. As usual, Mr. Roseman will be heading into ICSC with several interesting space availabilities he is marketing. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 12/07/11 3:00pm

ICSC

The Flatiron District, one of many suggested "hot" "new" neighborhoods.

Q: The City's Next Hot Neighborhood? A: Take Your Pick

To seasoned retail brokers, the very concept of the next big neighborhood in a city that has been developed several times over is, well, naïve. Still, as The Commercial Observer recently learned, most are still looking for a reason to believe. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 12/07/11 1:30pm

ICSC

After Hours: Real Estate Brokers Look For After-After-After ICSC Party

It’s ICSC week in New York City and while many in the retail business consider the event secondary to the larger conference held by the organization in Las Vegas each May, for many Manhattan real estate brokers, the conference is the most important of the year—and not necessarily just because of its jam-packed daytime roster of speakers and seminars.

In establishments from the New York Times’s four-star-rated Del Posto to the Dream Hotel in Lower Manhattan, buttoned-up retail brokers will be wining and dining potential clients during a two-day orgy of after-hour soirees, dinners and suds-soaked meetings, all designed with the deal in mind. Read More

By Laura Kusisto 5/18/11 4:55pm

Features

The Top New Retail Spots You’ve Never Heard Of

Employment numbers might still be shakey and shopping malls are reportedly on the permanent wane, but there’s more to celebrate in Vegas this year than Celine Dion’s triumphant return tour. “We’re a nation of shopaholics,” said Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Faith Hope Consolo.  Indeed, this year’s International Council of Shopping Centers is poised to be the Read More

By Laura Kusisto 5/13/11 5:01pm

Lease Beat

Canuck Sighting! Joe Fresh Opening in Esprit’s Flatiron Space

The much-watched Canadian retailer that recently landed on Fifth Avenue with a splash of red and white, is opening its second New York City location, multiple sources told The Observer. 

Joe Fresh, a Gap-lite clothing line most commonly found in Canadian grocery stores, is moving into the former Esprit space at 110 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron district. The roughly 15,000-square-foot space Read More

By Laura Kusisto 4/21/11 6:12pm

Lease Beat

Shorts Season Kick-Off! Resort Brand Signs on Madison

The thermometer has finally hit 55 degrees and judging by the 12 tourists already sporting shorts in Times Square, it’s high time we started stocking up on luxury resort wear. 

To wit, Calypso St. Barth’s has leased a new store at 900 Madison Avenue. “They’re a pretty hot brand,” said Newmark Knight Frank‘s Jeffrey Roseman, who Read More