Two Birds Bridesmaid, a clothing retailer specializing in bridesmaid dresses, inked a five-year lease for a 1,500-square-foot office in the third-floor loft at 166 Mercer Street. The taking rent was not available, but the asking rent was $45 per square foot. The three-story Soho building has two floors of offices sitting atop a Victoria’s Secret retail space. Brokers Kim Skarvelis and David Barreto of Cast Iron Real Estate represented the landlord in the deal, while Andrew Epstein of Easy Street Properties brokered the lease for Two Birds.TRD [more]

As large, national chains that can no longer afford high rents are
vacating prime retail space, smaller chains and restaurants are taking
advantage of lower rents and opening up in locations that were once
reserved for national retailers. As landlords look to rent space out to
smaller businesses that are seeking to expand or open a first location
and that have expendable cash, neighborhoods such as heavily trafficked
Soho, where rents last year surged beyond $125 per square foot, are now
offering rents below $100 per square foot. In Tribeca, where rents have
fallen an average of 30 percent, property owners are also offering
several incentives, such as months of free occupancy and early
termination clauses, which allow tenants to test certain locations.
David Barreto, a retail broker at Cast Iron Real Estate, said that in
today’s market, landlords care more about solid tenants than about
getting the highest profit. [more]