Uniqlo's Fifth Avenue storefront
At a time when American retail chains with shopping mall presences, like Abercrombie & Fitch, Coldwater Creek and Talbot’s, are cutting back, foreign retailers are working to increase their American presence. The New York Times reported that this is especially true with Japanese basics retailer Uniqlo, which recently signed a lease at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, N.J., in a new effort to grow at malls. [more]
Where Brooks Brothers once stood you now have Uniqlo, the ultra-hyped Japanese clothiers whose advertisements in recent weeks have achieved an almost unparalleled degree of saturated ubiquity on billboards, buses and in subway cars throughout the five boroughs. All of those ads announce the opening of their new flagship (and their third New York City store) at 666 Fifth Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd streets. That store, which opened a few weeks ago, stands in clamorous discordance next door to the recently opened Hollister flagship, whose darksome façade is enlivened with shallow pools of water and live video feed of the California surf.
Architecturally, the most remarkable thing about Uniqlo’s façade is the fact that the company was allowed to peel off some of the building’s signature embossed aluminum panels at the third story and in the process diminish somewhat the overall effect of the building, which was completed in 1957 to designs by the firm of Carson & Lundin. [more]
On the heels of opening a new clothing store on Fifth Avenue last week, Uniqlo is opening its other new New York City location at 31 West 34th Street today, WNYC reported.
This new store is close to Macy’s, at 151 West 34th Street.
According to the New York Observer, the location near Herald Square is 64,000 square feet; the one on Fifth Avenue is 89,000 square feet. As The Real Deal first reported last year, Uniqlo took over the space from Ann Taylor.
The United States is at the heart of the Japanese company’s strategy, according to Shin Odake, Uniqlo’s head of U.S. operations. Sales are flattening out in its home market so the company is looking overseas for growth, according to WNYC. [more]
Even though concerns about a double-dip recession are still great, large retail companies continue to pay top prices for premier locations, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Recent examples include clothing company Uniqlo’s $300 million lease on Fifth Avenue, similar to the price Dolce & Gabbana paid to lease space nearby.
“The rent we pay is quite a large amount,” said Shin Odake, COO of Uniqlo USA, of the store opening between 52nd and 53rd streets on Fifth Avenue in two weeks. “But given that we think we have the best location on Fifth Avenue, and many people walking by will be from across the United States and other countries, we think the rent is actually quite reasonable.” [more]
Spanish fashion retailer Mango is opening its second New York location at 7 West 34th Street this fall, DNAinfo reported. Although a spokesperson declined to comment on an exact opening date, staff at the store’s Soho location said it will probably be in early September.
Mango is just one in a string of upscale retail tenants coming to the area, DNAinfo reported. Japanese clothing store Uniqlo is set to open its third New York store on the stretch and Levi’s and Timberland footwear store just opened in May.
As The Real Deal previously reported, new stores are a boost for the landlords on 34th Street, who have seen an increase in rental rates and property values. There are 11 landlords on the block between Fifth and Sixth avenues who rent to approximately 30 retailers. Top owners are SL Green Realty and JEMB Realty, which own the two large properties, at the western edge of the street. [more]
Despite a recent wave of high-priced, high-profile retail deals, Jared Kushner’s 666 Fifth Avenue is proving no different than many other over-leveraged Manhattan buildings purchased at the height of the real estate market: it’s now running low on cash. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kushner, who led his family’s record $1.8 billion purchase of the office and retail tower in early 2007, is negotiating with lenders to recapitalize the property in exchange for a modification of its $1.22 billion mortgage. The building is now around $3.5 million-per-month short on its debt service payments, and its reserve fund has dwindled to just $10 million, sources said. Comments
In one of the city’s largest-ever retail condominium deals, Spain’s Inditex Group has agreed to pay $324 million to purchase 32,000 square feet at 666 Fifth Avenue for a new flagship Zara store, the company announced today. The space, formerly an NBA store, is roughly one-third of the 90,000 square feet purchased by Stanley Chera’s Crown Acquisitions, the Carlyle Group and Kushner Companies for $525 million in 2008, according to the Wall Street Journal, which originally broke the news of the deal. The rest, which is currently leased by Uniqlo and Hollister, is also on the market. The purchase price for the Zara space includes the buyout of the remaining time on the NBA’s lease, which sources said had less than three years before its expiration. Uniqlo’s lease at 666 Fifth last year, in which it agreed to pay $300 million over 15 years, was among the city’s most expensive retail leases ever. [WSJ]
A lawsuit brought against the estate of Sol Goldman claiming it was seeking $7 million to approve a sublease with Japanese retailer Uniqlo on West 34th Street near Macy’s was settled last month, two sources said.
The suit was related to the expected entry of Uniqlo onto 34th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
Through its parent company, Fast Retailing, Uniqlo has negotiated with El Fassi Realty to lease a portion of 31-39 West 34th Street, court records show. The retailer is expected to lease the former Ann Taylor Loft portion of the first floor, as well as the space occupied by Dr. Jay’s on the second and third floors, vacated after El Fassi paid it more than $10 million, sources said. It was unclear how much total space it involved. [more]
For New York City real estate, 2010 in many ways marked a return to normalcy after the tumultuous aftermath of the financial crisis. As the ubiquitous real estate appraiser and Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller put it: “it was a year of a sense of relief.” City home prices stopped their freefall and sales activity improved considerably from the post-Lehman doldrums. Stalled condominium projects like the Sheffield and 1 Rector Park re-started sales. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim bought Tamir Sapir’s Fifth Avenue townhouse, the Duke Semans mansion, for $44 million. As the unspoken taboo on ostentatious spending faded, a number of high-end residential properties changed hands at the end of the year, including Brooke Astor’s 14-room duplex at 778 Park Avenue, which finally sold after two years on the market (albeit for a significant discount from its original asking price). Japanese retailer Uniqlo snagged 89,000 square feet at 666 Fifth Avenue’s former Brooks Brothers space for a record $300 million, demonstrating that retail is still thriving along the posh shopping corridor.
But the economic downturn continued to make its presence felt. The office market remained uneven and troubled lender iStar Financial fought to stave off bankruptcy amid lingering fears of a double-dip recession.
Here are The Real Deal staff’s picks for the stories that most altered the New York City real estate landscape in 2010, in alphabetical order. [more]
A tenant of the notoriously tight-fisted estate of the late Sol Goldman is claiming in a new lawsuit that the sprawling real estate company is harassing it to extract a $7 million payment to approve a sublease by Japan’s top clothing retailer, Uniqlo, at 31 West 34th Street near Herald Square. Tenant El Fassi Realty claims the Goldman estate is using New York City Fire Department violations to claim the lease — which expires in 2086 — is in default, because the lease requires
violations to be cleaned up quickly. If they are not, the Goldman estate will terminate the lease. [more]
