French designers Marithe & Francois Girbaud have leased 3,150 sf of space at 47 Wooster St. The freestanding, one-story building will house the firm's first US store. While the deal was originally negotiated prior to September 11 at a rent close to the $325,000-per-annum asking price, it could easily have been scrapped after the World Trade Center attacks, according to the Lansco Corp.'s Yair Staav, whose Retail 1st group brokered for Girbaud. Building owner 47 Wooster St. Realty Corp was self-represented.

"Because of September 11, the building owner and the tenant created a discounted rent for an extended period of time, to allow the tenant to get going until the area is back on its feet," Staav tells GlobeSt.com. "Instead of letting the tenant go, we immediately came back with incentives to get the deal signed." Girbaud will occupy the building for one year at the discount rent. A higher rent will then kick in for the remainder of the 15-year lease.

Another world-class designer, Tommy Hilfiger, is close to opening a new flagship store in a 9,000-sf build-to-suit property at the northwest corner of West Broadway and Broome Street. Staav and Retail 1st brokers Douglas Zinn, Bill Melville and Christine Emery brokered for building owner 376 West Broadway Enterprises. GVA Williams Real Estate Services Co. Inc. represented the tenant. Details of the transaction were not disclosed but the asking price for the property was $1.7 million per annum.