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Retail

By Gus Delaporte 4/03 10:00am

Retail

wholefoods

Up, Up and Away: Retailers Pushing Boundaries on Upper East Side

National retailers are pushing north from 72nd Street on the Upper East Side, chasing changing demographics and searching for value, according to several brokers active in the market. Both 86th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues and Madison Avenue north of 72nd Street have seen strong activity and booming lease prices.

“I did deals up there 10 or 15 years ago and was hard-pressed to push $110 to $120 per square foot,” said Patrick Breslin, executive vice president of global retail at Studley. “Today, if you can find good real estate on Lex on 82nd to 85th, you’re looking at $400, $500, $600 per square foot.” Read More

By Gus Delaporte 3/27 7:30am

Retail

times-square-theatre

REBNY Issues Call for Submissions for Retail Deal of the Year Awards

The Real Estate Board of New York has opened the submission process for the Retail Deal of the Year Awards, it was announced yesterday. The awards recognize the most creative and significant retail deals in New York City.

Submissions for the awards are due April 25. Winners will be announced at the REBNY Retail Committee’s Deal of the Year cocktail party on June 11.

“It’s certainly the most prestigious award given in our business,” Peter Braus, retail committee chair at REBNY, told The Commercial Observer. “As retail has gotten to be more of a factor in New York real estate, it has gotten to be quite the market prestige to win the award.” Read More

By Al Barbarino 1/10 10:43am

Retail

Chelsea Market

Eight New Stores to Hit Chelsea Market Next Month

Ownership at the Chelsea Market is reportedly renovating 5,700 square feet of space to make way for eight new vendor kiosks, where cooking and food preparation will be on display for its 120,000 weekly visitors.

Most of the space was created when Amy’s Bread moved part of its operations off-site, and the rest will come from the renovation of a loading dock and an office, the New York Times reports.

Leases are currently being negotiated and rates will run in the $200 to $400 per square foot range, and the stores, to be delivered in plug-and-play condition and geared towards start-ups and “less-established” businesses, will be operational as soon as mid-February, said Michael Phillips, COO of Jamestown Properties, according to the Times. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 9/11/12 5:53pm

Lease BeatRetail

WTC Site When Finished

Opening Office in 7 WTC, Westfield Ramps Up to Begin Leasing WTC Retail

Westfield is ramping up its efforts to market and lease the roughly 365,000 square feet of retail space that is being constructed at the World Trade Center several sources say.

The company, one of the country’s largest owners and operators of retail and mall space, leased an office high in 7 World Trade Center overlooking the 16-acre WTC site and has installed a sophisticated marketing suite that it is using to woo big name tenants. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 6/19/12 10:00am

Retail

Times Square Theater.

All the Twists and Turns Behind Times Square Theater, Last Week’s Most Creative Deal of the Year Winner

Marvel Comics kicked the tires for a proposed flagship store and theme restaurant based on the comic book publisher’s legion of mutant superheroes. Burger King considered changing the 1920s-vintage theater into “The World’s Largest Burger King.” Even the professional grapplers from the World Wrestling Federation envisioned the domed auditorium as a studio-slash-retail-slash-performance space, where wrestlers would fight as diners ate their suppers. Alas, like the other contenders, the WWF walked away.

And so it went for the brokers and potential tenants seeking to fill the old Times Square Theater, a space so pockmarked with hidden challenges, prohibitive rent requirements and aging infrastructure, that the quest to find a suitable tenant lurched on for an entire decade, from shortly after George W. Bush’s election as president to the second half of Barack Obama’s first term in office.

Considering the false starts and dashed hopes C. Bradley Mendelson and Alan Schmerzler faced while negotiating their drama-filled deal last year for 217 West 42nd Street, an award ceremony on par with the Tony’s wouldn’t have been out of the question.

“We ran into a recession, we ran into 9/11, there was a lot of stuff going on,” said Mr. Mendelson upon winning the Real Estate Board of New York’s coveted Most Creative Deal of the Year award last week at the 14th Annual Retail Awards at the 101 Club. “We actually should have gotten an award for keeping the agency for as long we did.” Read More

By Daniel Geiger 6/13/12 1:50pm

Retail

Brad Mendelson

The CO Gets Tipsy At REBNY’s Awards

The Real Estate Board of New York handed out its annual retail deal of the year awards last night at Club 101 on Park Avenue. Fresh off its retail adventure at ICSC in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, The Commercial Observer was present to capture the cocktails, the awards ceremony and of course the Read More

By Carl Gaines 4/17/12 9:00am

Retail

Kimco

Bronx Best Buy to Close, Kimco Realty Corporation’s Exposure Limited

In the wake of Best Buy’s announcement last week that its store at 517 East 117th Street at East River Plaza in the Bronx is on the list of 50 stores that will close, New Hyde Park REIT Kimco Realty Corp. has moved to underscore its limited exposure to the closures.

According to Kimco, only two of its shopping centers will be affected—at a total of 85,000 square feet. The shopping centers impacted are in Dayton, Ohio and Tustin, Calif. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 4/12/12 4:01pm

Retail

JLL

Davie Berke and Paul Berkman Head To JLL

A retail team from the real estate brokerage Newmark Knight Frank has jumped to rival Jones Lang LaSalle The Commercial Observer has learned.

Davie Berke and Paul Berkman, two brokers who have handled several prominent deals, including last summer’s high profile relocation of the NBA store from 666 Fifth Avenue to 590 Fifth Avenue, joined the company in recent days. Read More