A Shake Shack restaurant, Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality Group and the Gallery at Westbury Plaza

Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group is further expanding its Shake Shack empire — which already stretches as far as Kuwait — to Long Island, Long Island Business News reported. The beloved burger chain inked a deal for an undisclosed amount of space at the Gallery at Westbury Plaza, a 330,000-square-foot redevelopment site at 900 Old Country Road in Westbury, N.Y., according to previous reports.

The shopping center’s Miami-based developer Equity One projects that the eatery will open in the fourth quarter of 2012. Leases have already been signed there with Trader Joe’s, Saks Off Fifth, Nordstrom Rack and the Container Store. [more]

[Updated at 4:36 p.m.] Big-box retailer Target quietly partnered with two local developers to purchase a 7.9-acre United States Postal Service site in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, for $35.2 million, where they plan to build a 300,000-square-foot mall. The acquisition of the site at 815 Hutchinson River Parkway at Lafayette Avenue went into contract in November and closed Feb. 11, city property records published last Wednesday show. The owner was listed as Lafayette Nominee Owner LLC, with an address at Target’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, Minn. [more]

From left: Robert Futterman and 229 West 43rd Street; Chase Welles and East River Plaza; and Jedd Nero and 798 11th Avenue

The Real Estate Board of New York announced the nine contenders for its “Retail Deal of the Year” awards today, a competition that honors ingenious and influential real estate transactions (click here to see the full list of contenders). Included in the list was the controversial deal at the Times Square building at 229 West 43rd Street, through which retail brokerage Lansco claims it was cheated out of a $1 million commission. Robert Futterman of the eponymous firm represented the property owner, Africa Israel, in the deal and was named in the nomination. Other top deals submitted included the Costco lease at East River Plaza at 521 East 116th Street and the Volkswagen Group lease at 798 Eleventh Avenue.
[more]

Spa Belles is looking to expand in Chelsea, Soho, Tribeca and the Upper East Side

From the May issue: It seems New Yorkers still want their mani-pedis. Although nail salons have felt the pinch of the downturn, they have continued to grab retail space, and landlords have helped by offering them concessions, at both new and existing locations, brokers say. Like discount stores, nail salons have proven nimble enough to survive, and some have even picked up the pace of expansion, given the bargain rents. “[Nail salons] provide a service that is an affordable luxury that a woman can afford even in today’s economy,” said Robin Abrams, executive vice president of Lansco Corp. “It’s an inexpensive way to make them feel good.” Still, the concessions have often been short-term rent reductions, meaning a painful rent increase could be looming for these salons. [more]

99-cent stores are proliferating all over
the city because of the down economy.

From the March issue: Bargain retailers are having a New York City moment. Emboldened by recession-friendly rents, local 99-cent stores are spreading their wings in the outer boroughs and eyeing Manhattan. Other discount stores — from Costco to outlet store Nordstrom Rack — are also in a New York City growth spurt.

“We came out of a retail climate where credit was king, and everyone traded up,” said Andrew Mandell, a broker with Ripco Real Estate. “Now rents have come down, and people have traded down in terms of what they are purchasing.”

Rick Stassa, executive vice president of Friedland Realty, sees 99-cent store activity all over the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. He brokered the lease for a 99 Cent Discount King store at 2364 University Avenue in the Bronx, which opened in January. “I just got off the phone with four 99-cent store people this morning, trying to put together deals with them,” Stassa said last month.  [more]

Jason Pennington of Ripco Real Estate

From the February issue: Mayor Bloomberg may have declared war on high-calorie, sodium-filled diets, but New York City’s landlords seem to think fast-food joints are good for their health — their fiscal health, that is. Fast-food restaurants are under construction all over the city, gearing up to serve greasy burgers, fried chicken and burritos, as well as accompanying sugary sodas, which the Bloomberg administration portrayed as globs of fat in a glass in a recent public awareness campaign. In this tough retail climate, food and beverage leases in the city are rising faster than any other category. While they generally make up the largest portion of leases on The Real Deal‘s monthly Deal Sheet, last month the category saw 19 deals for over 70,000 square feet of retail space. That’s more than double the second most active category: fashion. And the greasy diet that landlords have signed up for is, in many cases, long-term, with 10- and 15-year leases.  [more]

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]

From the November issue: While vacancy signs have been proliferating along the avenues of many of the city’s established shopping districts throughout the downturn, major chain stores are moving into massive new malls located in former retail dead zones in places like the South Bronx and East Harlem. These new multilevel malls — many of which are on former industrial sites — are different from the big-box stores that made inroads into many parts of the city in recent years. They boast even larger floor plates, often allowing a store to consolidate all of its operations on one level. That, in turn, has the potential to attract the types of warehouse stores and wholesale outlets typically found in the suburbs and less dense parts of the outer boroughs. Indeed, later this month, Manhattan’s first Costco is set to open at East River Plaza, a new half-million-square-foot mall located between East 116th and 119th streets along the FDR Drive. Next year, a slew of bargain stores will also be opening at the mall, which was developed by the Blumenfeld Development Group and is 90 percent leased out. Tenants will include Best Buy, Marshalls, and Bob’s Discount Furniture.

A New York State Supreme Court judge late last month ordered the
appointment of veteran corporate attorney Stuart Shorenstein to take
over as receiver of 34 Leonard, the troubled luxury co-op development
in Tribeca. Shorenstein, who recently joined the corporate law division at Cozen
O’Connor, was ordered Aug. 27 to collect rents and complete
construction of the property and named Cooper Square Realty as managing
agent at the building. The order also named E.W. Howell, as general
contractor of the project. “The goal is to complete the [construction of] the building,” Shorenstein told The Real Deal,
when asked about the fate of the project. “The second step is to
complete the foreclosure action. Once that is done, we’ll be in a
position to decide how to proceed.” [more]

Rendering of the Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market

New York City-based discount department store Conway Stores has taken
18,000 square feet at the Related Companies Gateway Center at Bronx
Terminal Market, located near the new Yankee Stadium, bringing the
approximately 1 million-square-foot mall to 90 percent occupancy.  Abe
Cohen, president of Conway, and Adam Goldschmidt, Conway’s in-house
director of leasing, represented Conway in the deal. Peter Ripka of
Ripco Real Estate brokered the deal on behalf of Related. So far, two
stores have opened at the mall — Home Depot, on April 23, and Staples,
on June 6 — with the next tenant, Target, scheduled to open July 26.
Restaurant chain Applebee’s projects an opening of its location at the
mall at the end of August. [more]