Jamestown is planning to create 80,000 square feet of new retail space at Chelsea Market.
The Atlanta-based real estate investment firm is planning to spend between $35 million and $50 million to expand the basement at its 1.2 million-square-foot office and retail property in Chelsea, Crain’s reported.
The renovation will double the building’s retail square, and will take about five years, the company’s president, Michael Phillips, told the paper.
“Adding the lower level gives us precious square feet in [a real estate] market where there isn’t a lot of retail like this.”
Existing retail tenants at the building will be able to expand their spaces downward, into the basement, as a handful already do, including Buddakan and Mirimoto, a restaurant, and the home goods store Anthropologie.
Rents on the lower level will be significantly lower than the up-to-$400 per square foot Jamestown charges for space on the ground floor.
Jamestown bought out its partners in the building back in 2011, valuing it at $800 million. In 2012, the City Council approved the firm’s plan to add 300,000 square feet of office space there. The additional office workers would become customers at the new retail spaces, Phillips told the paper. [Crain’s] – Ariel Stulberg