TJ Maxx Joins Retail Influx at JEMB’s Herald Towers

JEMB Realty is forging ahead with its revival of a Midtown shopping corridor, convincing TJ Maxx to sign its first new lease in Manhattan in a decade.

The big-box retailer agreed to lease 40,000 square feet at Herald Towers in Herald Square, the New York Post reported. The store will occupy two floors of the property at 50 West 34th Street and is expected to open by the end of the year, representing the retailer’s eighth Manhattan location.

The asking rent on the 10-year lease was a blended $4 million, according to the Commercial Observer. In the fourth quarter, the average ground-floor retail asking rent on West 34th Street was $405 per square foot, according to CBRE.

JEMB’s Jacob Jerome told the Observer that the deal reinforces “the corridor’s role as one of the most important shopping districts in the country.”

Ripco Real Estate’s Richard Skulnik represented the tenant, while JEMB was represented in-house.

The lease brings occupancy at Herald Towers to 95 percent. Other tenants at the 110,000-square-foot property include Old Navy, MooMoo and IT Italian Trattoria.

Old Navy, Gap Inc.’s largest brand, agreed last spring to create a 55,000-square-foot flagship on the first and second floors of Herald Towers, the largest retail lease of the year in Manhattan at the time. The asking rent on the 15-year lease was not disclosed at the time.

Herald Square has been slow to recover compared to other Manhattan retail corridors like SoHo and prime Fifth Avenue. The area along 34th Street between Fifth and Seventh avenues sported 21 ground-floor retail vacancies during the first quarter of last year, according to CBRE, the second-most among the 16 districts tracked by the brokerage.

Herald Towers was once the McAlpin Hotel, but was rebranded after JEMB purchased the property in 1999 for $150 million. The property also includes 690 apartments, where a studio is asking $3,500 per month.

— Holden Walter-Warner