SoHo Leads U.S. Trophy Retail Property Sales in Q1: Report
By Emily Davis June 26, 2026 11:16 am
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Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood emerged as the country’s most active trophy retail market in the first quarter of 2026.
A new report by boutique capital markets advisory firm Adirondack Capital Partners (ACP) tracked 14 trophy retail property sales in premier U.S. shopping corridors, totaling more than $704 million nationwide between January and March. The findings top off a dramatic two-year reversal in fortune for luxury high street retail properties after years of post-2018 pessimism.
Of the trades followed by ACP, six occurred in SoHo, representing 43 percent of such transactions. Other destinations among the 20 corridors ACP tracks include Madison Avenue in New York City, Miami’s Design District and San Francisco’s Union Square.
SoHo is “definitely the belle of the ball as it pertains to high street retail locations,” Michael Hunter Coghill, founder and managing partner at ACP, told Commercial Observer.
Coghill expects the SoHo corridor to retain the report’s top spot by the end of the year, although competition from Palm Beach, Fla.’s Worth Avenue and Boston’s Newbury Street is fierce.
The SoHo neighborhood’s more than $195 million in investment activity included 120 Spring Street, which traded in January for $18.5 million, or $8,043 per square foot, to a private Japanese investor for Birkenstock’s flagship store. The deal, arranged off-market by ACP, marked the highest price per square foot achieved nationally during the reporting period, and remains the highest in New York City so far this year, according to the firm.
Cross-border, high-net-worth capital is driving the trend, according to the report, particularly from Japan. The same private investor at Spring Street was behind the $46 million Cartier building trade at 102 Greene Street in 2024, and Japanese accessories manufacturer Yoshida & Company paid $34 million in March to acquire its own flagship building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Other high-flying New York City retail deals included luxury retail operator Richemont’s $54.5 million purchase of the Van Cleef & Arpels store at 690 Madison Avenue, as well as Evergreen Peak acquiring the SoHo home of Alo Yoga, its affiliate, at 90 Wooster Street for $44 million.
Low vacancy rates pushed median asking rents along SoHo’s Broadway corridor to $750 per square foot during the second half of 2025, according to a Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) report.
Coghill said the recent activity is defined by “jewel box assets,” or single-tenant locations priced around the $10 million to $50 million mark. This is a departure from $350 million to $400 million megadeals found along the Fifth Avenues of the world.
“Not many people have the appetite for that today, whereas the $40, $50, $60 million deals are a little bit more digestible,” Coghill said.
It also marks a trend of major brands buying their own stores outright. Nearly 30 percent of transactions tracked in the first quarter of 2026 involved owner-users or affiliated brands acquiring their own locations. Examples include Apple and Ralph Lauren purchasing their Boston stores for $88 million and $38 million, respectively, in a defensive strategy against spiking rents.
“If you’re seeing a 400 percent surge in rents in SoHo in just five years, I think people are looking at the writing on the wall and saying, ‘We’ve been through this rodeo before, and we want to be in control of our own destiny going forward,’” Coghill said.
Emily Davis can be reached at edavis@commercialobserver.com.
