SLIDESHOW: Check Out TurnStyle, the Subway Concourse-Turned-Shopping Hub

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This afternoon, the century-old concourse at Columbus Circle that had been closed since 2009, reopened as the long-awaited shopping strip, TurnStyle. Shop owners, real estate brokers, friends, family and media were on hand for TurnStyle’s debut.

TurnStyle occupies a 27,000-square-foot-long passageway from West 57th to West 59th Streets under Eighth Avenue with 39 vendors (32 storefronts and seven kiosks) including MeltKraft and Ellary’s Greens, Doughnuttery, Dylan’s Candy Bar, Fika Espresso, Papyrus, Specs New York, Spectre & Co., Bombas and Studio Manhattan.

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In November 2013, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority tapped Susan Fine of OasesRE and Columbus Development LLC to develop the TurnStyle project through a 20-year lease. Ms. Fine told CO last May that it was “the first time the MTA has privatized at all.”

Ms. Fine noted at the ribbon-cutting today that 90,000 commuters traverse the Columbus Circle station on a daily basis.

The $14.5 million project was funded with a combination of equity and debt from Goldman Sachs (GS) Urban Investment Group and money from Ms. Fine and her friends.

TurnStyle opened below the Columbus Circle subway station (Photo: Lauren Elkies Schram/ for Commercial Observer).