Urban Market close to taking first Manhattan location

Upscale grocery store Urban Market is close to inking a lease to anchor a pair of Hell’s Kitchen rental buildings at a development project led by Taconic Investment Partners, The Real Deal has learned.

The full-service market — a spinoff of Key Foods that opened its first location late last year in South Williamsburg — would occupy a total of 27,416 square feet across the basement and first floor of the buildings, located between West 52nd and 53rd streets. Great Jones Realty’s Rob Morea, who couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, is representing Urban Market in the long-term lease. The deal is expected to close later this month.

Taconic, Ritterman Capital and nonprofit group the Clinton Housing Development Company have plans to jointly develop a 24-story building at 525 West 52nd Street and a 12-story building at 540 West 53rd Street, as previously reported. The properties – one participating in the 80/20 program and the other entirely affordable housing – are slated to hold almost 400 apartments total. The developers are in contract for the residential component of both locations in a deal set to close later this month, sources said. If the residential deals were to close, Taconic would take the lead on the 52nd Street building, while Clinton Housing would head up the development of the 53rd Street structure, according to sources.

Urban Market would sit at the base of these buildings. The store would be the chain’s first in Manhattan. It is slated to be larger than both the current 16,000-square-foot space at 11 Broadway in Williamsburg and an upcoming 17,000-square-foot space at 82 Bogart Street in Bushwick.

LeNoble Properties, an affiliate of Queens-based lumber supplier LeNoble Lumber, owns the 41,000-square-foot retail condominium component.

The remainder of the block-through retail space between West 52nd and 53rd streets and 10th and 11th avenues would house up to four other tenants, S. Andrew Katz of the Prusik Group told TRD. The other retail tenants have yet to be secured.

“This community has been calling out for a grocery store,” said Katz, who served as a consultant on the deal for LeNoble.