NEW YORK CITY-As Grand Central Terminal approaches its 2013 Centennial, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will be celebrating the station’s 100th birthday by creating and marketing two major retail spaces inside the station, GlobeSt.com has confirmed. For the first time available for lease, the MTA is making available a 12,300-square-foot space on the west side of Vanderbilt Hall –the station’s former main waiting room – for a sit-down restaurant and takeout area, as well as a 4,700-square-foot underdeveloped area above Grand Central Market.
The new restaurants, which are slated for a 2013 opening, will coincide with the terminal’s centennial year, which kicks off in February. According to a source, a request for proposals will be issued later this month.
In a statement, Nancy Marshall, the MTA’s director of Grand Central Terminal Development, says that the station’s built-in foot traffic makes the locations “spectacular” for food service businesses. The terminal is the second most-visited place in New York City after Times Square, with 750,000 visitors a day. “Vanderbilt Hall is visually stunning, and a restaurant above the vibrant Grand Central Market promises to have tremendous cachet,” she says.
The terminal – which recently became home to a new 23,000-square-foot Apple flagship store on the North and East Balcony – is also welcoming shoe and fashion designer Vince Camuto and Shake Shack, part of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group to the station. The terminal has 100 retail tenants, which generated approximately $27 million in rental income for the transportation agency in 2011, according to the MTA.
The new retail spaces are also part of the MTA’s effort to generate revenue. It is operating with a $24 billion capital budget for the next seven years to fund major infrastructure project such as the Fulton Street Transit Hub, East Side Access and the Second Avenue Subway. “We are looking to achieve the maximum economic return we can from each property that we control,” says Jeff Rosen, MTA’s director of real estate, in a statement. “The success we’ve had at Grand Central mirrors our efforts elsewhere and shows the way forward for all our properties, large and small.”
Over the last five years, 45 retail leases in Grand Central have expired and have been replaced at higher rents than the previous users, a sign of the station’s strength as a commuter hub and retail destination. “Even in these lean economic times, each and every time we’ve had a lease expire, the bids have been above what the previous tenant was paying,” Marshall says.
The terminal is also home to shops like Aveda, MAC Cosmetics, Banana Republic, Papyrus and Swatch.
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