Hell’s Kitchen gets a Dunkin’ Donuts, continuing chain’s expansion tear

The owner of four Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in Manhattan and the Bronx has signed a 15-year lease for a fifth space on Ninth Avenue between 47th and 48th streets.

West Side Donut, Inc. already owns Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in Manhattan at 1024 First Avenue and 815 10th Avenue, and in the Bronx at 1320 and 1325 Hutchinson River Parkway, said Jordan Spiegel of Sunburst Advisors, who represented both the tenant and the landlord in the transaction.

The asking rent for the latest space at 693 Ninth Avenue was $160 per square foot, Spiegel said. He declined to reveal the final rent on the 900-square-foot space.

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The opening of a new store is in keeping with the expansion plans that the donut and budget coffee company has been following in New York. At a time when other chains, including coffee giant Starbucks, are scaling back in the city and elsewhere, Dunkin’ is expanding. It plans to triple its U.S. store count to 15,000 by 2020. The chain already has 341 stores, all franchises, in the five boroughs, according to a study by the Center for an Urban Future.

A tally by The Real Deal found that Dunkin’ has already signed at least nine other local deals this year and a dozen in the last two years. One franchisee plans to open 14 Upper West Side stores over the next five years.

The Hell’s Kitchen store “fills a pocket where there is no Dunkin’ Donuts nearby. They’ve been trying get on these blocks for quite some time,” as Hell’s Kitchen has become a residential area rather than just a nighttime attraction, Spiegel said. “You have a bigger population moving into that area…working, looking for that coffee in the morning.”