Prime Tribeca retail space hits market

A 19,000-square-foot retail space in a Romanesque revival building in Tribeca newly home to J Crew CEO Mickey Drexler is available for lease for the first time in almost half a century.

The space, which is at 140 Franklin Street on the corner of Franklin and Varick streets, was previously used as an office but will soon be converted to a retail condominium. Jamison Weiner’s Manhattes Group, which has both a development and brokerage division, has been tapped to develop and lease out the space, Weiner told The Real Deal today. Plans for the conversion will be finalized by September, with construction slated to begin this fall.

Once completed, the space could house multiple tenants, Weiner said — one occupying the Varick Street side of the space and one or two tenants fronting on Franklin Street. The asking rent for the ground floor corner space will be $110 a foot, while the side street and lower-level space will ask $90 per foot and $30 per foot respectively. The property has already drawn interest from a bank, eying the corner space, and a local Tribeca retailer, who looked at some of the side-street square-footage, Weiner said.

The retail condo’s owner, John Calicchio, who is also a member of a partnership developing a new condominium at nearby 11 North Moore Street, sold the entire building, which was previously used as the headquarters of his electrical supply company Argo International, in 2000. Calicchio retained ownership of the ground-floor and basement space in the transaction. It has continued to be used by Argo until now. Sanba Design and Development, which purchased the building from Calicchio, converted the upstairs warehouse property into a residential condo.

J. Crew’s Drexler famously bought a unit in the building for more than its $13.5 million listing price in June. As previously reported, the 6,226-square-foot home was on the market for only one week and was the subject of a bidding war.