From left: Ben Fox, executive vice president of retail leasing at Massey Knakal, a rendering of 837 Washington Street and the Helmut Lang store at 230 Columbus Avenue

While high rents are cooling the retail leasing environment in the trendy Meatpacking District, years of construction have pushed rents down on Columbus Avenue in the Upper West Side and suddenly fashion outlets are flocking to the uptown thoroughfare.

Citing Massey Knakal figures, Crain’s reported that there are at least two dozen availabilities along 14th street west of Fifth Avenue. [more]

The Meatpacking District is seeing the beginnings of an influx of high-end retailers with mass appeal, the Wall Street Journal reported, in the wake of the departure of ultra-exclusive designers like Stella McCartney from the neighborhood. Sephora, Levi's, Intermix and Tory Burch are all entering the district, while brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Chanel have also eyed potential locations in the area, runs roughly from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street and has a total of 200,000 square feet of vacant retail space. [more]

Larry Gluck’s Stellar Management has finalized a plan to partner with tenant Erez Shternlicht and replace a loading dock in Gluck’s Meatpacking District office building at 450 West 15th Street with a prime retail storefront.

The retail addition, that will sit just west of luxury clothing retailer Jeffrey New York on West 14th Street between Ninth and 10th avenues, is part of a larger approximately $60 million sale and lease transaction Milk Studio’s Shternlicht executed in two separate deals including the sale of the neighboring Mobil gas station.

Shternlicht said the extremely complicated deals would unlock millions of dollars in value for the Stellar Management building and influence the area by adding retail on 14th Street all the way to 10th Avenue. [more]

Faith Hope Consolo of Prudential Douglas Elliman, the High Line and Stuart Siegel of Grubb & Ellis

Retailers are flocking to the Meatpacking District to take advantage of High Line-inspired foot traffic. The elevated half-mile long park between Gansevoort Street and, as of this spring, 34th Street attracted 3 million visitors within a year of opening in June 2009. (The Empire State Building has about 3.7 million visitors a year.) International perfumery Bond No. 9 is the latest retailer to join the pack, signing a 1,000-square-foot lease last week for its fifth New York City location at 863 Washington Street, between 13th and 14th streets. Richard Skulnik, a broker at Ripco Real Estate who specializes in properties in the Meatpacking District, said mainstream retailers recognize they need to be near the High Line. [more]

Since the High Line opened less than two years ago, a small business district is beginning to form nearby in the Meatpacking District, the Wall Street Journal reported. A 15-story tower at 450 West 14th Street is being developed and a second one at 860 Washington Street was approved by the city. A joint effort between Taconic Investment Partners and Square Mile Capital wants to add a third office building, and plans to seek city approvals tomorrow for a 50,000-square-foot glass structure. These three projects mark the development of a fledgling office district, in contrast to the neighborhood of West Chelsea where a spate of new residential towers is being built. While West Chelsea was rezoned in 2003 to allow for residential projects, the Meatpacking District still maintains its manufacturing zoning. However, with the arrival of the High Line came new office space, which is permitted in manufacturing areas, as are hotels and nightclubs. [WSJ]

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Pam Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group

While best known for its residential market presence, the Corcoran Group will be noshing next month, with plans to host a food and wine event in the Meatpacking District Oct. 8. The event, “Meatpacking Uncorked,” will bring together some of the neighborhood’s most popular restaurants and wine gurus, which will be serving samples. Hosted in conjunction with the New York City Wine & Food Festival, the event will also incorporate the area’s boutiques, which will tackle the wine portion of the evening. Tickets must be purchased in advance. TRD

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The board of the Whitney Museum of American Art voted unanimously yesterday to begin construction on a building in the Meatpacking district in Manhattan that will greatly increase the size and scope of the 80-year-old institution, the New York Times reported. Ground will be broken next year, with completion slated for 2015. The board also agreed to sell a group of brownstones adjacent to the museum’s Marcel Breuer-designed building on Madison Avenue and 75th Street, and its annex building around the corner on 74th Street. The sale will effectively end any chance of the museum expanding in its current space, where it has been since 1966. Without room to grow uptown, and without the income needed to run two locations, the Whitney now faces the question of what to do with its Breuer building. “There is no better time to build than now, with construction costs and interest rates at an all-time low,” explained Leonard Lauder, the Whitney’s chairman emeritus and largest benefactor. “Downtown is a new city, a new nation. Why shouldn’t the Whitney be the museum of record there?” [NYT]

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Famed hospitality consultant Steven Kamali has listed his condo in the Porter House building at 66 Ninth Avenue on the corner of 15th Street, according to the New York Post. Kamali, a top real estate advisor in the Meatpacking District, has listed the one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom unit for $1.75 million. Raphael De Niro of Prudential Douglas Elliman has the listing. [Post, 3rd item]

Levi’s may be moving into space 414 West 14th Street

San Francisco-based jeans retailer Levi Strauss & Co. is in talks to lease a portion of the newly-constructed 414 West 14th Street retail and office building in the Meatpacking District near the High Line, several retail sources said.

Levi’s would take less than half the 6,400 square feet of the ground-floor retail space, with about 25 feet of street frontage for a high-end store, the sources said. A lease at the building would be welcome news for the six-story office and retail building built by developer Sitt Asset Management and private equity firm the Carlyle Group. The site has been vacant since it was completed in February. The opening of the High Line in June has brought more potential shoppers to the neighborhood, but pedestrian traffic remains light during the day, some brokers said.

Levi’s has four locations in Manhattan, including in Soho at 536 Broadway near Spring Street and near Union Square at 25 West 14th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

A spokesperson for Levi’s said in an e-mail that the company was looking for space globally, but would not identify individual sites. [more]

Cignature Realty Associates has closed a $3.75 million multi-family building deal at 329 West 13th Street in the Meatpacking District. Meanwhile, the Greenwich Club Residences, a condominium conversion project at 88
Greenwich Street and Rector Street, has released the 70 remaining units
on floors three through five while floors one and two contain retail. Prices at the 452-unit converted office building start at $399,000 for studios and $599,000 for one-bedrooms. Sales in the building started in early 2007 and the development is currently 80 percent closed. TRD  Click here for more. [more]