Major Developments
Hershey Company plans to open a new flagship store at the base of 20 Times Square, a location that will triple its current 2,200-square-foot space at Times Square. The new location will be a block away from the company’s rival, Mars Inc.’s M&M World.Gary Barnett’s plans to raze 10 buildings on the block including 10 West 47th Street. Extell secured permits to demolish 10 West 47th and 2 West 47th, 3-13 West 46th Street, 562 and 564 Fifth Avenue. Extell bought 10 West 47th, a 72,000-square-foot office building for $74.4 million.
L+M Development Partners and Hornig Capital Partners have teamed up with SBH Health System to develop 314 units of supportive housing at 4451 and 4439 Third Avenue. The $156 million, 450,000-square-foot project will rise on two sites and sits across from the street from the St. Barnabas Hospital. The project will include services such as an ambulatory-care center and a kitchen for teaching healthy cooking habits, and all units will be affordable for low-income or formerly homeless households.
Tammany Hall, at 100 East 17th Street, is to become a six-story retail and office building. Liberty Theaters LLC, which owns the Gramercy building, plans to spend $50 million to redevelop the four-story structure. In 1984 it was reborn as a 499-seat Off Broadway theater, the Roundabout Theater, and in 1994 it was rededicated as the Union Square Theater. It received landmark status in 2013.
Amazon Books is hoping to open a store and café in the Hudson Yards. The stores are to open in late 2018 or 2019. Amazon inked a $30 million deal with the city’s Department of Education to sell e-books to the school system. The contract also has a $34.5 million option to extend the deal for another two years.
Sam Chang obtained a $115 million construction loan from Bank of the Ozarks to build a 28-story hotel at 338 West 36th Street. Construction is expected to be completed within 21 months. The 191,000-square-foot building, designed by Gene Kaufman, will feature two Marriott-brand hotels: a 280-room Spring Hill Suites and a 286-room Fairfield Inn & Suites. McSam Hotel Group bought the six-story Postgraduate Center for Mental Health for $50.8 million in 2014 and filed demolition permits soon after.
The city is dedicating the funds from the sale of the Rivington House of $16 million to housing for elderly residents in the neighborhood. The previous owners of the Rivington House, the Allure Group, paid the city $16 million to lift limitations that only allowed the property to function as a not-for-profit residential health care center. In February, Allure sold the property for $116 million to a group of developers, China Vanke Co., Slate Property Group and Adam America Real Estate, who plan to convert the building into a luxury condominium.
Thor Equities secured $45 million in financing from Deutsche Bank for 127-137 East 125th Street and 126 East 126th. Deutsche provided a $21.27 million gap loan and refinanced $23.57 million in outstanding debt on the two office-and-retail properties known as Gateway I and Gateway II. Thor bought the three-story, 53,000-square-foot building at 127-137 East 125th Street and its six-story, 63,000-square-foot neighbor at 126 East 126th Street last month for $75.5 million.
Target signed a 30-year lease to open a smaller format store at 500 East 14th Street in Extell Development’s proposed two-buildings. The store has 24,735 square feet on the ground floor and 17,632 square feet on a lower level. The corner space has more than 250 feet of frontage on East 14th Street and another 52 feet on Avenue A. The median asking rent for retail below 14th Street is $104 per square foot.
A subsidiary of one of the “Big Four” advertising agencies is putting nearly 80,000 square feet at its Midtown South office on the sublease market following recent turmoil at the company. MRY, a social-media agency owned by French advertising Publicis Groupe, is looking to sublet 78,000 square feet at its 11 West 19th Street headquarters between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
Several retail have abandoned leases “at the hub” in the shopping center at the World Trade Center transit hub. Apple is still planning on opening its new store there on a mezzanine-level space.
