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NEW YORK CITY-In one of the city's largest retail deals of late Chicago-based Museum on Broadway LLC inked a 22,365-sf deal to construct the world's largest Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in the Bertlesmann Building at 1540 Broadway. Though financial details of the transaction were not released, retail rents in the Times Square district are fast approaching $500 per sf.
The museum, which will be about twice as large as any existing Ripley's, is expected to open next fall in the Paramount Group's 44-story, 1.1-million sf office and retail tower between 45th and 46th streets. The space, which fills up the retail availability at the site, is on the ground, first and second levels. There are presently 17 such museums in the US, two in Canada and eight others around the world, including Europe, Asia and Australia.
Robert Futterman and Josh Strauss of Robert K. Futterman & Associates represented Museum on Broadway LLC in the 15-year leasing transaction. James VanderVliet, vice president of leasing for Paramount, repped the landlord. The museum will join the Virgin Records megastore and Planet Hollywood restaurant in the site.
Ripley museums are part of Ripley Entertainment, Inc., a subsidiary of Canadian conglomerate the Jim Pattison Group, which publishes the Ripley's Believe It or Not! comic strip, licenses its name for the television show of the same name, and owns about 40 other entertainment attractions in ten countries. The museum is not the sole entertainment-oriented company to take space in Times Square. At the end of July, AEG Lives signed a 15-year deal to take over the 43,000-sf space that had housed a single-screen Loews Astor Plaza Theatre at 1515 Broadway for its first concert venture here.
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