Vintage Retailer Hearts of Gold Signs 7K-SF Lease at 40 West 25th Street

Hearts of Gold will relocate from its current storefront at 11 West 25th Street, according to Kaufman. The company inked a 10-year lease term and plans to open in the summer of 2023. Asking rents were $90 per square foot.

“We have been seeing an uptick in retail leasing across the Flatiron neighborhood. Many tenants are drawn to the area’s dynamic live-work-play environment,” Grant Greenspan, principal at Kaufman, said in a statement. “We are confident that the rise of retailers in this area will increase office leasing as companies returning to the office are attracted to spaces that offer employees an easy commute with afterwork activities nearby.”

But Kaufman isn’t looking to fill its retail spaces with just any old tenant — it’s looking for longevity.

“Every landlord is different. Kaufman is a more institutional, big-picture landlord, and they look at things not for today and tomorrow. They look 10, 20, 30 years into the future,” James Famularo of Meridian Retail Leasing, who brokered the deal on behalf of the landlord alongside Evan Roteman, told CO. “A lot of the landlords we work with would take a smoke shop, a massage parlor or a psychic. Kaufman won’t even consider something like that. A lot of those tenants you’re taking a gamble on.”

Shah Eatemadpour of Root Capital represented the tenant in the deal but did not respond to a request for comment.

Kaufman Organization and AXA Financial entered an agreement to purchase the 12-story, 135,000-square-foot building between Sixth Avenue and Broadway as a joint venture in December 2019 with $76 million in acquisition financing from MetLife.

It was previously owned by Japanese investment firm Unizo Holdings.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.