UPDATED Sept. 4, 2022, 8 a.m.: The used sneaker trade went bigtime a while ago. Now one of the retailers it spawned will try to make a similar leap.
Legacy, a consignment shop with a 7,200-square-foot store in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, has signed a long-term lease for 8,000 square feet at 1 West 34th Street. The location, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and opposite the Empire State Building, will give it a high-profile venue to sell such brands as Yeezys, Kith and Supreme.
Asking rent for the space — 4,000 square feet on the ground and 4,000 on a storage level — was $350 a foot. The store will only sell new merchandise.
One draw for Legacy was that every major sneaker brand has a presence in the Herald Square shopping corridor.
“It’s the sneaker empire of the city,” said KSR Retail’s Ike Bibi, who brought Legacy to the location, along with Sophia Gaines and another colleague.
The 12-story building dates to the early 1900s but has been modernized over the years. It is one of three contiguous buildings on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street owned by an entity controlled by Lloyd Goldman of BLDG Management, which purchased them in 2002 from the Dah Chong Hong Kong Trading Corporation for $52 million.
At one time, 1 West 34th Street was owned by the FW Woolworth Corporation, which sold it in 1956 to Harut Corporation. It was transferred in 1972 for roughly $360,000 to Woostock N.V., a Curaco-based entity that sold it to Dah Chong in 1981 for $1.1 million.
Legacy’s space was previously occupied by Bebe and later Lane Bryant. An Amazon bookstore is directly to its west.
Legacy, which will open within the next few weeks, has an online shop that boasts many hard-to-find items, but don’t expect bargains.
One day this week, the highest-priced kicks on the site were $5,000: an original, size 11 Jordan 1 Retro Satin Banned sneaker. At its release in 1985 the NBA did not allow certain colors, and fined the young Michael Jordan $5,000 every time he wore them on the court. Nike recently re-released it for $160.
The lowest-priced items on the site were Supreme Skittles Red and Supreme Oreo snacks at $10 each.
Legacy, founded in 2020 by two friends, Puneet Singh and Justin Ashby, who had been buying and selling sneakers as side gigs for two decades. After their small pop-up store at the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania became one of the top five such stores in the country over its 18 months, they moved to a larger location in nearby Willow Grove.
“Thirty-fourth Street and Times Square are both two amazing corridors and in hot times, those were priced at $400 to $500 per foot,” Bibi said, “so when there is a lull in the market it provides an opportunity for these smaller brands to step into a location.”
Legacy is also opening at New Jersey’s American Dream mall, sources said.
This story has been updated with more details about Legacy.