In a Thriving City, SoHo’s Soaring Rents Keep Storefronts Empty
Ms. Rosen said that SoHo landlords are more willing than ever to permit the short-term stores,
“if they can’t get the rents they want, and it’s a way for the tenant to get comfortable.”
After a successful run as a pop-up store on Spring Street, Aerie, a lingerie
and clothing chain developed by American Eagle, is looking for a more permanent spot in SoHo.
Pop-up stores — which take over a space temporarily, with a predetermined end date — offer landlords what Beth Rosen, a retail broker at RKF, a national firm, calls a “kind of a band-aid for the space,” bringing in revenue
but not foreclosing the possibility of a permanent rental paying the higher asking rate.
Between 2010 and 2014, rents for stores in the former industrial district in Lower Manhattan soared by 75 percent, to an annual $860 a square foot, or $4.3 million
a year for a 5,000-square-foot storefront, as national chains pushed into the neighborhood, willing to pay seemingly any price to get a piece of the action.
“No one’s taking space.”
Maybe not “no one”: T. J. Maxx, the discount department store chain more often found in suburban malls, has signed a deal for a large storefront on Broadway, according to real estate executives active in SoHo who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the deal
and did not want to jeopardize their relationship with the building’s owner.
“Right now, it feels like retail is on pause,” said David LaPierre, a retail specialist and a vice chairman at CBRE, a real estate services company.