High-End Retailers Eyeing Brooklyn
It was big news for Brooklyn when it was announced last month that Barney’s Co-op would be leasing a 10,465-square-foot storefront space at the Two Trees-owned 194 Atlantic Avenue, and now it appears that the move has spurred other high-end retailers to consider a move to the County of Kings. According to The Times this…
It was big news for Brooklyn when it was announced last month that Barney’s Co-op would be leasing a 10,465-square-foot storefront space at the Two Trees-owned 194 Atlantic Avenue, and now it appears that the move has spurred other high-end retailers to consider a move to the County of Kings. According to The Times this morning, Swarovski Crystal, Anthropologie and North Face, among others, have all begun checking out potential locations. Someone needed to be first, and now that Barneys Co-op has done it, others will follow, said Karen Bellantoni, an executive vice president for the retail brokerage firm Robert K. Futterman & Associates. Brooklyn has the demographics to support this kind of retail, but until now, no national store was willing to take the chance, said Joanne Podell, the executive director of retail services at Cushman & Wakefield. Evidently, many of these potential tenants, like Barney’s Co-op, are targeting Cobble Hill: The economics of Cobble Hill are as good as the Upper East Side or Upper West Side, said Noel Caban, a vice president for retail at CB Richard Ellis. The neighborhood has great demographics and rents are roughly a quarter of what they are in Manhattan hot spots like Soho. One obvious location for a national retailer would be the space at Smith and Atlantic (underneath The Smith) that’s sat empty for the last three years.
High-End Retailers Are Scouting Sites in Brooklyn [NY Times]
Fulton is not much more dismal than Broadway in lower Soho. My guess is that you will see by 2014 something in the Anthropologie/A&F category (i.e., a price point above H&M) somewhere near the new development going on in the old Albee Square Mall.
REI should open a NY flagship store on Fulton Mall. That would be killer.
“More modest businesses like Apple and H&M should start attacking The Fulton Street Mall in Downtown Brooklyn, currently the most underused commercial strip in NYC.”
I think Fulton is a big raw for big retailers of that ilk.
I think Anthroplogie would do extremely well in Brownstone brooklyn – although the founder gives a lot of money to very Republican causes.
Horrors! Oh, and what is a “Republican cause”?
i really can’t imagine a retailer like anthropologie (or anything of that sort) opening on the fulton mall stretch. ever. it’s pretty dismal.
“i just want an american apparel in fort greene. ”
HIPSTER!!
I was told Anthropologie is looking at the Fulton Mall, which of course does not preclude looking at other locations. Or was it Abercrombie & Fitch? Hard for me to keep track of these brands when I have never shopped at any of the places mentioned above, with the exception of EMS. Is Domsey’s still in business somewhere?
i wish that other spots in the borough would be targeted by retailers as well.
agree that bk is the most underserved area in the city as far as national retailers go.
i just want an american apparel in fort greene.
I hope Apple & H&M do open downtown — and stay away from other neighborhoods in Brooklyn, where they would snarl up traffic and push out sleepier fare.
There’s such a concentration now of retail on Atlantic, I could make a special trip and do all my shopping at once — Bird, Urban Outfitters, Steven Alan. Much easier than traipsing all over Manhattan. And I’d get to try Blue Marble.
Wal-Mart please!!