Top 10 Leases of the Month: Do Schools Count as Retail?
By The Editors November 13, 2019 12:37 pm
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Okay, we concede that the most massive retail lease of the last month was not quite as big as it seems. BMW took 227,000 square feet at SL Green (SLG)’s 555 West 57th Street, but, yeah, the deal was for retail and office. We don’t know the office vs. retail breakdown, but those car showrooms can be pretty roomy. So we’re pretty confident that BMW remains the unchallenged biggest retail lease of the month.
Do schools count as retail? Well, sort of. (I mean, it’s not office — unless you get sent to the principal’s office.) In which case, Ascend Charter Schools landed the second biggest, nabbing 45,000 square feet at The Moinian Group and Bushberg Properties’ PLG residential tower in Prospect Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn.
The New York Public Library (another iffy question when it comes to are-they-retail-or-are-they-something-else?) renewed its 16,000-square-foot lease at 10 Jersey Street, a.k.a, 285 Lafayette Street.
All that reading and studying is bound to make some of us hungry; hopefully, the case for the death of the food hall is overstated. UrbanSpace is planning a 15,000-square-foot food hall at George Comfort & Sons’ 135 West 50th Street.
Urbanspace wasn’t the only eatery chomping up leases last month; BenMoha, the restaurant group behind Famous Dave’s BBQ signed a lease for a new, 6,400-square-foot restaurant called The Harrison at 1601 Broadway; Quality Branded, the group behind Smith & Wollensky signed a 5,600-square-foot lease at 2 Bank Street; and, finally, American Standard Hospitality Group, behind names such as Woodland and Imani Caribbean Kitchen and Bar in Brooklyn, swallowed up 4,200 square feet at Thor Equities’ 519 Fulton Street.
And Thor wasn’t only inking dining leases; they also signed Club Monaco to Lululemon’s old 13,000-square-foot space at 597 Fifth Avenue.
The slightly less high-end brand, street wear company, Supreme, renewed their 8,000 square foot lease at RFR’s 190 Bowery Street.
Like the storied food hall, the urban drug store is also defying the grim predictions about its future with a brand new CVS grabbing 12,000 square feet at 140 Church Street.
