It’s alive! Manhattan’s long vacant retail spaces are finally rising from the dead

The corpses of large retailers — immoderate decades aged — haunt nan streets of Manhattan. Now, a fewer are yet being brought backmost to life. 

The blight was peculiarly gory successful Times Square, wherever down nan engaged streets and illuminated signage, location was a glut of quiet space. Now, 2 caller leases will capable 75,000 quadrate feet.

Most notably nan 25,000-square-foot Liberty Theatre, a erstwhile vaudeville and movie house, had sat vacant for decades. Part of nan intermezo analyzable on West 42nd Street, betwixt Times Square and Eighth Avenue successful nan guidelines of nan Hilton hotel, it was conscionable leased by Broadway4D.

Once a awesome renewal of nan Liberty Theatre is complete, Broadway4D will educate, entertain and animate caller audiences astatine affordable prices pinch nan latest technology. It plans to coming a recently written philharmonic weaving successful nan champion humanities songs sung by existent Great White Way stars.

Further westbound connected that block, 50,000 quadrate feet connected nan ground, first and 2nd floors of 11 Times Square has been leased by nan London-based Path Entertainment, which specializes successful immersive ventures. Dungeons & Dragons: nan Twenty-Sided Tavern, nan company’s interactive theatre presentation, is now down nan artifact astatine Stage 42. 

Michael Rielly of Rielly Retail Solutions represented PATH — which has, among its projects, a Monopoly acquisition ongoing successful London and a Clue Live nether development. Cushman & Wakefield represented nan SJP Properties building that had an asking rent of $8 cardinal per year.

The first and 2nd floors of 11 Times Square person been leased by London-based Path Entertainment. Lois Weiss

But location are different expansive spaces yet to capable astir Times Square. Matt Chmielecki of CBRE is offering nan salient Good Morning America workplace astatine nan guidelines of 1500 Broadway that wraps West 44th Street arsenic those talking heads yet decamp for nan caller ABC/Disney office astatine 7 Hudson Square.

The 58,245 quadrate feet covering 4 levels of studio, unit and offices tin beryllium divvied up. The workplace area itself has double tallness windows pinch ceilings complete 20 feet precocious and tin beryllium yours for a blended asking rent of $10 cardinal a twelvemonth — pinch plentifulness of melodramatic signage options. There’s moreover different 52,000 quadrate feet connected 3 floors correct above.

“There are a batch of experiential tenants successful nan marketplace that are each looking for large, column-free abstraction pinch precocious ceilings and they are reliable to find,” Chmielecki said. To lure those tenants, he says immoderate building owners are moreover penciling retired nan costs of removing slabs but, he warns, location are ever further costs and issues.

Another column-free offering is nan erstwhile Crown Plaza ballroom astatine 1601 Broadway pinch 40,000 quadrate feet of double-height abstraction and an asking rent of $100 per foot. 

“It’s appealing to those experiential tenants,” said Chmielecki because nan abstraction tin beryllium kept acheronian if needed to heighten immoderate technological lighting effects.

The erstwhile Times Building unit of complete 250,000 quadrate feet is besides oozing pinch openings aft nan pre-pandemic demise of Gulliver’s Gate and Nat Geo’s Ocean Odyssey. The unit condo is successful nan midst of being sold done Doug Middleton astatine CBRE who declined comment.

Over connected Fifth Avenue’s ritzy unit corridor, a salient position facing nan Apple Cube astatine nan guidelines of 767 Fifth Ave. has recovered a tenant. Never occupied by its leasee, Under Armor, Italian puffer overgarment retailer Moncler has made a 24,400-square-foot sublease woody to resurrect nan two-story storefront. Cushman & Wakefield’s Steven Soutendijk repped Under Armor. 

Moncler is moving from its existent 9,000-square-foot location connected nan adjacent artifact astatine 650 Madison, wherever its lease expires successful 2026 and rent is conscionable complete $725 per foot.

Bonhams Auction House is besides moving to nan 42,000-square-foot Steinway Hall Rotunda successful nan guidelines of 111 W. 57th St. in precocious 2025. It will person a expansive entranceway into a soaring 80-foot solid atrium and see 4 levels of galleries and 2 freely auction rooms.

Steinway hallway and nan adjacent solid unit abstraction astatine 111 W. 57 St. Lois Weiss

That will, however, time off Bonham’s 30,000 quadrate feet astatine nan guidelines of 590 Madison Ave. vacant adjacent year. Since it’s crossed from a artifact overflowing pinch LVHM brands and nan luxury manner conglomerate is now leasing 150,000 quadrate feet of offices successful nan aforesaid tower, it could beryllium filled by 1 of its subsidiaries faster than a complaint paper tin clear a sale, brokers say.

A salient abstraction astatine 680 Fifth Ave. pinch 7,875 quadrate feet connected 2 levels is correct adjacent to nan recently opened Swarovski connected nan area of West 54th Street and is disposable astatine $2,500 per ft based connected nan crushed level of 3,230 quadrate feet. Marketing agent Soutendijk confirmed location are ongoing discussions pinch a number of tenants.

In Chelsea, different large lease was signed astatine Chelsea Piers on nan Hudson River and adjacent nan High Line. Here, pinch CBRE brokers connected some sides, nan Arte Museum, which already has a location successful Las Vegas, will unfastened an immersive media accumulation abstraction successful astatine 51,979 quadrate feet.