Westfield’s shopping mall at the Oculus at the World Trade Center has been transformed from a somber, white marble mausoleum-like Olympic skating rink into a vibrant shopping area with colorful window displays and plenty of shoppers.
Old retailer grumblings over blade signs, personalized door handles and the giant white ribs blocking views of their windows and mannequins melted away as the 365-foot-by-115-foot soaring complex provides plenty of visibility, light and elbow room for all.
On Tuesday, a color guard and skirling bagpipers performed to remember the victims and first responders of 9/11.
Children’s performers and a John Legend show followed as more than 100 stores welcomed the public for the very first time. Another 20 stores will come.
“We will do a billion in sales a year,” declared Peter Lowy, Westfield’s co-chief executive, who says it’s getting downtown’s “highest rents,” including lucrative percentage rents typical of a mall.
“You start getting a feel for the volumes, which will be about $3,000 per square foot [in sales],” added Lowy, an Aussie who is now an American citizen with hair that brushed the top of his deep blue shirt.
We were speaking in Westfield’s conference room at Seven World Trade Center that looks down at the leafy green Memorial Plaza.
Lowy was clearly tired from overseeing the mall’s grand opening, which was at one time expected to be in 2001 — and most recently in March 2015.
His dad, Frank Lowy, the company’s chairman, was Larry Silverstein’s partner in the original Port Authority mall deal. The towers were destroyed just six weeks later.
The Lowys were hoping a redeveloped WTC would bring not just the 650,000 square feet they were entitled to but rather something nearly twice that size.
When the Daniel Libeskind design made that impossible, they stepped away to let the New Yorkers finalize the new scheme.
“It took a long time, but here we are,” Peter Lowy said. He is now co-CEO with his brother, Steven Lowy.
Through a series of transactions, they paid a total of $1.4 billion for 365,000 square feet that will grow by 90,000 square feet (with additional payments when Two World Trade Center is completed).
“This is not a lot of retail and not a lot of shops,” said Peter Lowy, who’s other malls are closer to the 1-million-square-foot mark. “We were very excited about what they designed. We would have designed it differently, but that’s not the point.”
The space now rambles along Church Street and Cortlandt Way, at the base of Tower 4 and below ground in the numerous concourses and in the Oculus .
Eataly’s signage at the base of Four World Trade Center faces Church and Liberty streets. With 40,000 square feet of nooks and crannies filled with cheeses, chocolates, fish, vegetables, breads and tchotchkes along with plenty of casual seating overlooking the South Memorial Pool, it will be a popular stop.
“Eataly will be a spectacular draw. The Memorial will be a spectacular draw. The Calatrava building will be a spectacular draw — and we will have a huge [two-level] Apple store. You are creating a huge destination,” Peter Lowy said.
“In two years’ time or three years’ time [or] five years’ time, no one will care because by then you will have one of the most iconic buildings in the world. It will have lots of people coming through it. The retail will be there, the memorial will be there and the museum will be there, and no one will care about any of the issues anyone has been arguing about,” said Lowy.
“It will be a symbol of the city that will last for the next 50 years. And that is what people will come to see.” Amen.
