Five Below to open first Manhattan location on Fifth Avenue

Discount retailer Five Below is opening its first Manhattan store in November at General Growth Properties’ 530 Fifth Avenue.

The store will span about 10,800 square feet, larger than the average store’s size of about 8,000 square feet, according to CNBC.

Five Below currently has about 600 stores and plans to open roughly 125 more during fiscal year 2018. The company hopes to capitalize on the closure of Toys “R” Us by taking a bigger share of the toy market.

The Fifth Avenue store will be Five Below’s flagship location, and the company is designing it to appeal to New Yorkers and tourists. The company has a market capitalization of about $5.5 billion, and its shares are trading for about $100, a more than 115 percent increase from last year.

530 Fifth Avenue used to be jointly owned by GGP and Thor Equities, but Thor lost most of its interest in the building—along with buildings at 218 West 57th Street and 685 Fifth Avenue—earlier this year over unpaid debt. It now owns just 9.77 percent of the property, which it bought with GGP in June 2014 for $300 million.

Puma recently announced it would be opening a store nearby at 609 Fifth Avenue, between 48th and 49th streets, where it has inked a 15-year lease for 24,000 square feet. [CNBC]  – Eddie Small