Target to Anchor AvalonBay’s 1865 Broadway in Columbus Circle

NEW YORK CITY—Target Corp. has signed a lease for a new small-format store in Manhattan near Columbus Circle, at 61st St. and Broadway in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It’s scheduled to open in fall 2019. Target signed a 15-year lease with AvalonBay Communities for 35,000 square feet. The asking rent was $600 per square foot at the ground-level and $125 per square foot at the lower level and sub-lower level.

The store will anchor the base of AvalonBay’s 172-luxury unit residential tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The building is one block away from The Shops at Columbus Circle, which was formerly known as the Time Warner Center, before the media company decided to move its headquarters to Hudson Yards.

Although 35,000 square feet hardly seems small, Target spokesperson Jacqueline DeBuse tells GlobeSt.com that the small-format stores can start at less than 15,000 square feet. She says, “The average small-format Target is around 40,000 square feet, which is about one-third the size of an average 130,000 square-foot Target store.”

Around the country, the company is opening small-format stores in urban areas, dense suburban neighborhoods and near college campuses. The strategy is to enter a market where a full-size Target store would not fit, and to tailor the shopping experience and products for the area.

In early 2017, AvalonBay selected JLL as the exclusive leasing agent for the 67,000 square feet of retail space located at the base of 1865 Broadway. The retail space spans four levels—two lower level floors, the ground floor,  the second floor plus a 2,000 square-foot outdoor terrace. The building has 115 feet of frontage on Broadway and 245 feet of frontage on West 61st Street.

In the lease negotiations, Richard Skulnik of Ripco Real Estate represented Target. JLL’s Patrick A. Smith, Matt Ogle, Corey Zolcinski and Erin Grace represented AvalonBay. They worked closely with AvalonBay’s in-house team of Martin Piazzola, Jeff Topchik and Lauren Cahill.

“AvalonBay’s 1865 Broadway offers Target one of the most unique retail opportunities in all of Manhattan,” says Smith. “There are no other locations in this sub-market that can offer retail space of this size and quality.”

Ogle points out that the property is the first ground-up, multi-tenant retail building constructed in the neighborhood, since the Time Warner Center was completed in 2003.

DeBuse states that more than 95% of online orders will be ready for pickup within the hour, plus Target will hire approximately 160 employees.

The Columbus Circle location is the retail giant’s 28th planned or opened store in New York City, a market which the corporation has prioritized for growth. There are 10 existing small-format store locations in New York City including Forest Hills, Tribeca, Freeport, Elmont, Fulton St., Bensonhurst, Herald Square, Port Washington, the Lower East Side and the East Village. When Target opened its East Village location, using a theme of the famed punk rock club CBGB which closed in 2006—it received a backlash in the community for commercializing the neighborhood culture. The corporate retail chain apologized and noted it would take the community’s input into consideration when planning future store openings.

Target plans to open 10 additional small-format stores throughout the greater New York area over the next few years. This includes stores in Selden, Brooklyn Midwood, the Upper East Side, Kips Bay and Staten Island, opening later this year or in 2019. DeBuse also says smaller stores are slated for Hell’s Kitchen, Brooklyn Kings Highway and Jackson Heights in 2020, and Astoria Queens in 2022.

AvalonBay’s 350,000 square feet of high-end apartments in the tower are scheduled to open sooner than the Target, as early as the first quarter of 2019.

“We are thrilled to have Target in the project,” says Piazzola. “The store will be a great amenity for our residents at 1865 Broadway.”