Pop-Up Shops Become More Than Just Temporary

NEW YORK CITY-As retailers and designers figure out new ways to expand their businesses in a tight market, many brands are getting creative before inking a permanent long-term lease in Manhattan. Retailers like UNIQLO, Nicola Formichetti and QVC have all brought new life to vacant spaces by setting up their own pop-up shops, or temporary locations that work as test vehicles for concepts, locations and marketing, sources tell GlobeSt.com.

“There aren't as many vacant spaces to fill, and many stores have taken advantage of their older pop-up locations to go permanent,” says Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail leasing, marketing and sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Consolo recently completed a 2,000-square-foot pop-up store for Japanese fashion retailer UNIQLO at 1142 Third Ave. along with colleague, executive vice president Joseph A. Aquino.

UNIQLO’s latest Upper East Side pop-up location is an effort by the company to generate buzz and create visibility for the brand as they roll out two new flagship stores at 666 Fifth Ave. and another at 34th street and 6^th avenue. The retailer also has a presence Downtown at 546 Broadway in SoHo.  “Any reminder that a location is good for retail is a smart marketing move,” Consolo says. “Also it keeps the area busy and the neighbors happy which is great when potential tenants do their research.”

The advent of pop-up shops in emerged after the economic downturn left retailers little options to expand or move to new locations. But as New York rebounded, many of the stores have become neighborhood mainstays. “There are a lot of scenarios in which these spaces are occupied by a brand in order to test out a specific market and to see whether or not that market is a good place for the brand to actually do a permanent location,” Kelly Gedinsky, associate director at the Winick Realty Group LLC tells GlobeSt.com.

Gedinsky and Winick’s director Monica Kass recently completed a two-week 23,500-square-foot pop-up shop lease deal for QVC and Vogue at 428 Broadway just in time for Fashion Week. “We were sort of waiting for the right moment for them to occupy this space,” Gedinsky says.

Before the pop-up transaction came into play, OMG Jeans Superstore occupied the building, located on the southeast corner of Howard Street in SoHo. “Upon their leaving, the ownership decided to create a selling basement from what was formerly storage,” she says. “By the time that QVC and Vogue were looking for a temporary location for this event for last night’s Fashion’s Night Out and a runway show during Fashion Week, 428 Broadway had become ready for occupancy, so the timing was right.”

By bringing fashion editors, designers and other professionals to the site, the Winick team is working to market the six-story site to a permanent user. “That was always the goal, but it is a little more difficult when you have a tenant in place and at this point, it is the first time in quite some time that this space is actually ready for occupancy, especially now that the lower level has been made available for selling,” Gedinsky says, noting that the building has 7,500-square-foot floor plates on the ground level.

But with availability rates remaining flat or decreasing in every major retail corridor, Consolo says pop-up retailers are more likely to flock to SoHo and the Meatpacking District, but long-term users are still looking to Midtown. “We’ve had a great retail rebound in the last 12 months and it continues,” she says. “We did see some pop-up deals in Times Square a few years back, but we are not seeing that either because there are more aggressive, permanent deals going on.”