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New York

Iconic Village Cigars building is for sale

Property may be offered for $5.5M

An image of Village Cigars from 1976 pictured with the Hess Triangle. (Getty, WikiMedia)
An image of Village Cigars from 1976 with the same iconic facade, pictured with the Hess Triangle. (Getty, WikiMedia)

One of the West Village’s most iconic corners is about to hit the market.

The owners of 110 Seventh Avenue South, the longtime home of Village Cigars, plan to sell the property, Real Estate Weekly reported. Jonathan Posner, who manages the limited liability company that owns the building, told the publication that the retail income took a hit because of the pandemic, and “the property really requires a fresh new approach.”

Marketing has not begun, but the site is expected to be offered for around $5.5 million, according to the publication.

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Village Cigars has occupied the building since at least the 1920s, and according to Posner, the owners are on a month-to-month lease. While the building is within the Greenwich Village Historic District, the designation does not protect the business. (Real Estate Weekly speculates that the enormous billboard atop the building is more valuable than the property itself.)

The property also includes one of the oddest pieces of city ephemera: The Hess Triangle, a sidewalk plaque put in front of the building by a former owner. According to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the Hess family, which owned an apartment building that previously stood on the site, retained ownership of 3.5 square feet missed by a surveyor when the city condemned the corner parcel.

The family and the city eventually went to court over the three-sided speck of real estate, with the Hesses winning — hence the spite triangle, which reads “Property of the Hess Estate Which Has Never Been Dedicated for Public Purposes.” Now part of the corner property, the triangle is a city landmark.

[REW] — Amy Plitt

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Commercial Real EstateRetail Real EstateWest Village