An immersive Monopoly experience will land on a Times Square landlord’s property and pay a handsome rent, just like in the classic board game. But don’t expect free parking.
SJP Properties is taking a chance on British company PATH Entertainment Group at 11 Times Square, where the tenant will fill a long-vacant, 50,000-square-foot space, according to sources. SJP, run by Steven J. Pozycki, was asking for $8 million a year for its community chest. That’s $160 per square foot.
The landlord in 2018 inked Lionsgate Entertainment and Spanish amusement firm Parques Reunidos to a lease for the same West 42nd street space, but the planned film experience never materialized. The Monopoly Lifesized deal is one of the largest done in Times Square since.
The tenant was represented by the Los Angeles-based Michael Rielly of Rielly Retail Solutions while the building owners were represented by a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Alan Schmerzler and Jason Greenstone.
The companies either declined to comment or could not be reached by press time. The Times Square Alliance cheered the deal for the triplex space, which covers the ground, second and lower levels, totaling 49,982 square feet. Tom Harris, president of the business group, said West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues “has always been an iconic block full of a wide array of retail, entertainment, and attractions.”
SJP’s 1.1 million square-foot tower opened in 2011 and was designed by FXFOWLE and developed with Prudential Real Estate Advisors as part of the reinvention of the area.
A similar-sized, 15-year lease for the overambitious Lilliputian walk-through Gulliver’s Gate was signed in 2015 at the former New York Times Building, 229 West 43rd Street, when the asking rent was $300 per square foot. The attraction opened in 2017 but declared bankruptcy in 2019 and shut down a year later. Its building-mate, National Geographic: Ocean Odyssey, a virtual aquarium, was even larger at 60,000 square feet but tanked during Covid.
The Monopoly Lifesized concept was born in London and is now also operating in Denver and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The original Hasbro board game is based on the streets of Atlantic
City but there have been iterations created for most major cities and quite a few sports teams.
In the retail experience, guests work as a team to solve escape room-style challenges on a giant Monopoly board. As they do, the game unlocks chances to buy property, charge rent and break out of jail.
The Path Entertainment Group is also responsible for bringing Dungeons & Dragons The Twenty-Sided Tavern to Off-Broadway’s Stage 42.
It will take many months to build out the Monopoly game, which is not expected to open until next year at the earliest.
The 55,000-square-foot retail space at 11 Times Square, a 1.1-million-square-foot office tower completed in late 2010, sat vacant for nearly two years before snagging a tenant in 2012, when a Russian restaurant company leased 25,000 square feet on the ground floor and mezzanine level.
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