Flatiron District Retail Co-op That Is Home to Outdoor Voices Sells for $16M
By Nicholas Rizzi December 21, 2018 1:30 pm
reprintsA retail co-op on Fifth Avenue occupied by athletic apparel retailer Outdoor Voices has been sold by its longtime owners for $16 million, Commercial Observer has learned.
HUBB NYC picked up the retail co-op at the base of 142 Fifth Avenue between West 19th and West 20th Streets from I&L Weiss on Monday, according to city records and the broker on the deal.
“It’s one the last places in the city where people still go as a destination to shop that hasn’t been completely decimated by online sales,” David Schechtman, a senior executive managing director at Meridian Investment Sales, who brokered the deal for both sides along with colleagues Lipa Lieberman and Abie Kassin.
I&L Weiss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The commercial unit, at the base of a 10-story residential co-op, includes 2,347 square feet on the ground floor, a 2,005-square-foot usable basement and a 500-square-foot mezzanine. It has been owned by the family-run I&L Weiss for more than 50 years, which previously ran a shoe company out of the space, Schechtman said.
American Apparel leased the space in 2006 but the store shuttered in 2015 when the retailer filed for bankruptcy. The owners weren’t able to find a tenant from that point until this summer.
“They struggled for three years with a vacant space,” Schechtman said, adding that the retail market at that time made it hard to lease space. “It was when everybody just started saying ‘it’s over, it’s over.’”
Outdoor Voices inked a 10-year lease for the unit in June for its second location in the city, Crain’s New York Business reported. The asking rent was in the mid-$400s per square foot, as per Crain’s.
Update: The story has been corrected to show that HUBB NYC bought 142 Fifth Avenue.