Condo developers content to wait on vacant retail space

Though the recovering market has brought a new wave of buyers snapping up high-priced homes in luxury condominiums, down at sea level that tide hasn’t turned. According to the New York Times, retail space on the ground floor of these new developments has been slow to find tenants. River Lofts in Tribeca, 165 Charles Street, 100 11th Avenue, One Jackson Square, 111 Central Park North and be@schermerhorn are just a few of the relatively new developments saddled with significant retail vacancies. But the Times said that fact is not necessarily a bad thing. If developers are finding buyers for the units they are less dependent on revenue from the retail space, and they’d rather hold out for a resident-friendly tenant than a value-debilitating noisy bar or a 99-cent store. “If the developer has done well upstairs, he can afford to wait as long as he wants downstairs,” Faith Hope Consolo, head of the retail division at Prudential Douglas Elliman, said. Some of the spaces are being snapped up by investors, who are awaiting a full upswing in the retail market before hurrying for returns. [NYT]