The two-story space at the Northeast corner of Broadway and 34th St. was formerly occupied by an HMV music store. The outlet vacated a few months ago in a rent dispute. "It was a bad lease," an HMV spokesman tells GlobeSt.com. "They wanted to raise the rent too much. It was totally a lease thing."

Robert Futterman of Futterman & Associates and Mark Granata, president of RFR Realty LLC co-brokered the deal on behalf of building owner RFR Holdings. Alan Grossman, a partner at the Georgetown Co., represented Victoria Secret Stores Inc. Futterman would not discuss the terms of the transaction.

Meanwhile, another household name has signed a lease in Midtown. Hallmark Cards will move into a 3,700-sf space at 1114 Avenue of the Americas. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Grace Building space, which fronts 42nd Street facing Bryant Park, represents a homecoming of sorts for Hallmark. The greeting-card giant previously operated a store on the same block. Victor Menkin, principal of Menkin Realty Services represented building owner Trizec Hahn Office Properties and Hallmark in the deal, which took a year to put in place.

"There was a lot of concern throughout the New York real estate community relative to the economy in general, and Trizec was rather conscious of the kind of tenancy and rent level that they wanted for the space," Menkin tells GlobeSt.com. "Additionally, this being a very high-profile space, for Hallmark as a national retailer there were many approvals on the tenant side before we could put the deal to bed."

Moving a few blocks uptown, the agency for 3,900 of retail space at 37 W. 57th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, has been awarded to Faith Hope Consolo and Joseph Aquino of Garrick-Aug Worldwide Ltd. Formerly occupied by the now-bankrupt Cosmetics Plus, the space comprises three levels, with approximately 2,500 square feet on the ground level, 900 square feet on the mezzanine level, and 500 square feet in the basement. The double height, 25-foot frontage is all glass.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.