I’m in Sixth heaven
Sorry, doubters: Ave. has it coming and going
IF “retail is [bleeped], plain and simple,” as developer-landlord Billy
Macklowe said last week, Sixth Avenue — its entire, nearly four-mile length — hasn’t gotten the memo.
From Franklin Street, where “Avenue of the Americas” is born amid a confusing traffic tangle, all the way to Central Park South, Sixth has many fewer vacancies than any other Manhattan boulevard below 86th Street.
Because retail stats from real estate companies are notoriously less reliable and less complete than those for office and residential occupancy, the best way to see what’s happening on Sixth Avenue is simply to walk from one end to the other. It’s fun, because in many ways, Sixth might be the most cosmopolitan avenue we have. It changes personality every few blocks and resembles an earlier Manhattan in its kaleidoscopically shifting mix of tenancies and uses.
Along most of Sixth, you wouldn’t know there’s a retail “malaise” — as Colliers’ Brad
Mendelson pegged it recently— much less a fullblown crisis.
You’ll see none of the block-after-block blights of huge, empty storefronts that are common on Fifth and Seventh avenues, Broadway and on Bleecker, 34th and 57th streets.
Long stretches of Sixth have no empty stores at all, such as from Franklin to Spring Street. Between 32nd and 57th streets, we found exactly one space that was apparently on the market (a few other sites without stores are ongoing construction projects).
No signs screaming: “Prime Retail!” or “Flagship Opportunity!” or “Retail Reimagined!” The only relatively weak point is in the Village just north and south of West Eighth Street.
Macklowe’s comment, reported in the Real Deal, applies all too accurately to much of the rest of Manhattan. Data citing 15 percent availabilities in some parts of town seem much understated.
Many landlords, brokers and retailers are hardly aware that the Sixth Avenue miracle exists. Some industry insiders at first seemed baffled or amused when we asked about Sixth Avenue as a whole. But Eastern Consolidated’s
James Famularo wasn’t one of them. He cited Sixth’s remarkable “density” of traffic as a major reason for its success. He also said that asking rents for the few available spaces are relatively reasonable — unlike for nearby Broadway, “where landlords must be on drugs,” he laughed.
Colliers’ Mendelson said, “Up and down the avenue, generally, you have rents that are commercially viable. Go a block east and the rents might not be commercially viable.”
Unlike other major boulevards, Sixth isn’t identified with one particular kind of retail (e.g., Fifth Avenue super luxury, 34th Street middle market, etc.). Nor is it historically associated with h one industry, as Madison Avenue was with advertising, Seventh Avenue with apparel-making and Broadway with show business. Sixth Avenue is still searching for an identity even since the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade moved there from Broadway.
One reason for Sixth’s hiding-in-plain-sight status: It’s uniquely segmented. “There are multiple, different mar-
kets from south to north, each carrying its own strengths and weaknesses,” said CBRE retail specialist David LaPierre.
Why are there so few empty stores? Partly because Sixth Avenue isn’t over-saturated with retail venues as other major streets and avenues are. Sixth has less retail space overall, thanks to giant office building lobbies at the north end and little parks and plazas at the south end.
The avenue’s defined by a rolling procession of districts, each with its own character — low-rise Tribeca, Soho and Greenwich Village; Union Square, Ladies’ Mile, Herald Square, Bryant Park, and the corporate row from 42nd to 59th streets.
Along the way, it brushes shoulders with what re- mains of the flower market, the Diamond District and the landmarked, original Rockefeller Center.
Tenants range from funky to mid-market to worldclass. You’ll find a Maserati dealership, a Ducati motorcycle dealership, great Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya, piano mecca Steinway Hall, the School of the International Center of Photography, the landmarked Limelight former church, buttonand-beads merchants serving the garment district, and giant mall emporiums like H&M and Victoria’s Secret. Douglas Elliman’s Faith
Hope Consolo noted that, “What’s nice about Sixth is there’s a good mix of office, retail, wholesalers and upper-floor showrooms, where the business of business in New York is happening.”