Retail at Park Row Heats Up Financial District

NEW YORK CITY - The mixed-use office and retail tower under development in Downtown Manhattan’s Financial District at 25 Park Row  is seeing a wave of interest from retailers, some with small-to-large footprints and letters of intent for flagship buildouts. The market that has already seen a large transformation with the renovation of the Fulton Street Transit Center and will see even further density, Diana Boutross, the executive managing director of retail services at Cushman & Wakefield, who is leading leasing efforts for the property, tells GlobeSt.com.

The retail space at 25 Park Row is situated within an art deco-designed building with a storied history, which was once the home of J&R Music, an electronics and music retailer, well-known for its retail location on Park Row, across from New York City Hall for an estimated 43 years. Now, the new property in its place offers 60,000 square feet of high-ceilinged retail space and is available and divisible for different retail sizes. 

“We’re negotiating on different divisions,” Boutross said. “We had a lot of activity at the ICSC [International Council of Shopping Centers] conference with interesting tenants spanning from fitness to food, dry retailers such as clothing and shoe retailers and wet retail; restaurant and food retailers.” 

Retailers that decide to come to the submarket are slated to capitalize on strong spending power. Currently, the spending power in Lower Manhattan is $8.4 billion, annually. The average household income is $224,000. In addition, the submarket attracts 13.6 million annual tourists, has 493,817 daily subway riders, close to 300,000 office employees and an estimated 90 million square feet of office space, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield. 

“Park Row is completely under renovation and when repositioned with the brand new building[s], it’s going to be a hub with a lot of pedestrian traffic and scaffolding, just one block north of the Fulton Street transportation hubs.”