LUXURY furniture retailer Maurice Villency is hoping to close its doors on the prominent southeast corner of 57th Street and Third Avenue.
And aside from great deals on cool sofas, the retailer is also trying to cut a great deal to dump the space.
The lease on the store’s 26,100 square feet — on two levels — runs until August 2022 and has an asking rent of $3.4 million a year.
While that’s a lot of moola to commit to spend at a time when shopping has become a spectator’s sport, it is also an important corner in the design and décor district.
Brokers Robin Abrams and Alan Victor of The Lansco Corp. say that while the Villencys have successful stores in Roslyn, LI, and Paramus, NJ, the Manhattan store has a growing contract-furniture business and declining street sales.
“They [leased] this site when they wanted to take it forward and reposition the brand,” said Abrams. “They accomplished what they set out to accomplish, and don’t need to be there.”
Back in 2000, Eric Villency became president of the company and combined the former Schumacher showroom and a corner Chemical Bank branch into a magnificent two-story expanse.
After several millions of dollars in renovations, we told you it opened with a splashy Fashion Week show by designer Imitation of Christ, whose naked models were vacuuming down the runway.
Victor said the company would consider breaking up the space.
“If we get the right type of uses that creates some synergy, we might divide it, and there are natural divisions,” he said.
A competing broker, however, thinks the space is too big for a normal retailer and will end up in the health and beauty arena — in other words, another drugstore even though there’s a Duane Reade across the street.
Stay tuned.
*
A residential building that was once dubbed a “Doctor’s Hotel” because it featured doctors’ offices, including Dr. Ruth Westheimer‘s, is on the market for $39 million.
Broker Ivan Hakimian of Itzhaki Properties said the 20,000-foot, property at 133 E. 73rd St. — with two exits from the gymnasium-size basement — is attracting schools, embassies and developers, as another 2,500 feet can be added to the roof.
Though the residential portion is vacant, the property, which is owned by Lloyd Goldman, has five mom-and-pop shops open along the Lexington Avenue side of the building, and Goldman would consider splitting off the retail for himself and dropping the price for the rest.
While the neighbors all believe Alex Rodriguez bought and is renovating the former Fisher townhouse down the block, the slugger’s own broker, Adam Modlin of the Modlin Group, tells us it’s not the Yankee’s fixer upper.
*
With some tenants expanding and others contracting, it’s about time two simply traded places.
Castlewood Apparel is now moving out of 6,966 feet on the 13th floor of 42 W. 39th St. and into 12,582 feet on the second floor of the same building for the next 11 years.
Meanwhile, the shrinking Wear First Sportswear signed a 10-year deal for the higher floor, which had an asking rent of $36 a foot.
David Levy and Jeffrey Schwartz of Adams & Co. repped Wear First and the owners in both deals. Marc Shoen of Savitt Partners handled the expansion for Castlewood, whose deal had an asking rent of $34 a foot.[email protected]
