Rendering of Grand Central Apple Store

The cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority presented Apple with an unusually favorable deal to take 23,000 square feet of space in the Grand Central Terminal, according to the New York Post.

Not only is Apple paying just $60-per-square-foot, while other tenants, such as Shake Shack, pay upwards of $200 per square foot, but Apple is also under no obligation to kickback a percentage of its sales to the MTA, as all other Grand Central tenants do. The Post said retail analysts believe the store should generate at least $100 million in sales per year. Real estate executives interviewed by the Post expressed some measure of surprise that the agency wasn’t able to recoup some percentage. [more]

From the September issue: With a new Shake Shack in Grand Central, Five Guys all over Midtown and BareBurger in Park Slope and Astoria, the city’s ongoing burger boom is showing no signs of slowing down. But New York only has room for so many burger joints. So which of the many new options are winning over New Yorkers’ stomachs?

Volume-wise, the clear winner is Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which has spread like wildfire over the past few years. Founded in Virginia in 1986, Five Guys was the fastest-growing restaurant chain nationally in 2010, according to Technomic, a market research firm. It currently has nine locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is expected to open 12 to 20 new locations in the area over the next year, according to Andrew Moger, the CEO of Branded Concept Development, a design and construction firm that has worked with Five Guys.

Known for its made-to-order hamburgers, 11 free toppings and hand-cut fries, Five Guys developed a cult following in Virginia before founder Jerry Murrell started franchising in 2002. The chain is successful, Moger said, because it sticks to what it does best — serving only burgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches and fries — at a reasonable price point. [more]

Rendering of Grand Central Apple Store

[Updated at 4.50 p.m. with information on the store's construction] The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has quietly
released the renderings of the new Apple Store planned for Grand
Central Terminal, on the agency’s website. The images (see above and below) show what the 23,000-square-foot
property on the terminal’s east balcony could look like. The MTA’s
finance committee approved the deal for Apple to lease the property at
the end of July. Apple is taking over the space from Charlie Palmer’s
Metrazur restaurant, and will be paying significantly higher rent: $1.1 million compared to $263,997. Apple
will also be making improvements to part of the leased property at its
own cost, including the installation of an elevator.

Walking through Grand Central late on Saturday night,The Real Deal spotted that construction on the store has begun (photos are available on our Facebook page). Workmen seemed to be removing the furnishings — mostly tables and chairs — from the former Métrazur space and erecting scaffolding. The construction manager declined any further access to the site. [more]

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s deal to bring both the Apple Store and Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack to Grand Central Terminal moved one step closer to reality this afternoon when the agency’s finance committee gave the plan its official go-ahead. The Apple Store will take over the terminal’s east balcony from Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur restaurant, as well as the northeast balcony, which is currently vacant, according to the agenda from today’s meeting. The initial term of the roughly 23,000-square-foot lease will be 10 years with the option for two, five-year renewal periods. Shake Shack’s 10-year lease will be for a 2,270-square-foot space in the dining concourse. [more]

Shake Shack is eyeing a space at Grand Central Terminal, a spokesperson told DNAinfo, and has filed its application with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“As we expand Shake Shack we are looking to make our home in vibrant locations throughout New York City and beyond,” the spokesperson said. “We are interested in exploring the idea of bringing a Shake Shack to Grand Central, and have responded to the MTA’s [request for proposals].”

Shake Shack is reportedly interested specifically in the Zocalo restaurant space on the Lower Level Dining Concourse, according to Gothamist. [more]

To look out the windows from the 10th floor of Larry Silverstein’s shiny new 7 World Trade Center is to take visual stock of how far Lower Manhattan has come since Sept. 11, 2001. There’s the already-skyscraping 1 World Trade Center to the right, Towers 3 and 4 rising to the left, the soon-to-open memorial plaza below, and the new W Downtown staring back from across the construction site. A few blocks to both the east and west, Lower Manhattan now houses more residents than it has ever before seen, and still more are moving in — in droves. And soon, of course, Condé Nast will arrive, and with it, as is presumed to be the case, so will the neighborhood.

So this morning, when some of the most important architects of this turnaround convened to celebrate “The New Downtown,” alongside the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and Silverstein Properties, there was a natural, and deserved, optimism in their voices (see photos above). But there was also an unmistakable air of exasperation, as if to say, what else can we possibly do to get major retailers and restaurateurs to take notice? [more]

Restaurant titan Danny Meyer’s latest upscale creation, North End Grill, will open in Battery Park City at the end of the year, his Union Square Hospitality Group said today. The Wall Street Journal has more details on the new watering hole, a “new American eatery and bar featuring refined grill cooking with an emphasis on seafood” at North End Avenue and Murray Street. Chef Floyd Cardoz will sit at the kitchen’s helm after 12 years at Meyer’s Indian-fusion Tabla, which closed at the end of last year. [more]

From the South Florida website: New York restaurant titan Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group have won 21 James Beard awards for their work in restaurants such as the Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park. A more recent venture, the “better burger” upstart Shake Shack, now has locations in New York City, Saratoga and a recently-opened Miami Beach outpost. We talked to Meyer about the expansion of Shake Shack to Miami, the state of Miami’s dining and Shake Shack’s impact on the way New Yorkers eat. [more]

From left: Rosen and Schrager

From the January issue: Now that their split is official, financier Aby Rosen and hotel impresario Ian Schrager are wasting little time moving on.

Rosen acknowledged publicly for the first time last month that he had reached a deal to buy his ex-partner out of the Gramercy Park Hotel, the troubled boutique project the pair sank $200 million into renovating during the frothy pre-crash days. Then he issued a news release touting the new additions he has planned on his own for the 185-room high-end hotel, including a redesigned culinary operation headed by famed restaurateur and Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer.

Schrager, meanwhile, is actively searching for the site of his “next big thing” and is “in the early stages” of evaluating a hotel within 10 blocks of the Gramercy, said one industry source who asked to remain anonymous. [more]

Burger chain Shake Shack is continuing its rapid expansion, with plans to open new locations in Battery Park City, Brooklyn, Westport, Conn. and Washington, D.C., according to real estate law firm Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman, which represented the eatery in executing leases at the four new spots. Although the exact locations of the new Shake Shack outlets were not immediately clear, a spokesperson for the law firm did say that the new stores are expected to open this year. The burger chain has five existing locations in New York City, at Madison Square Park, the Upper West Side, Midtown, Citi Field and the Upper East Side, which opened this past fall. TRD