As the city forges ahead with rezoning to “enhance” the Upper West Side’s retail environment, Columbus Avenue has just achieved all the enhancement a neighborhood could want — 100 percent occupancy on the boulevard’s most prime, 15-block shopping stretch.
The rare milestone — not a single vacant storefront among 188 locations between West 67th-82nd streets — might not be matched on any other 15-block stretch in Manhattan. It was achieved with several recent restaurant and store leases described on the right of this page.
It’s a point of pride for the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District, which covers the blocks in question — and which has aggressively opposed the rezoning.
While retail vacancies blight neighborhoods from the Financial District to Harlem, the Upper West Side is another story. Not only on Columbus Avenue but also on Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, its retail scene is more in balance than anywhere else, beneficial to landlords, retailers and shoppers.
On Columbus, vacancies are very few either south or north of the BID zone, the same on Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue between 72nd Street and 110th Street — both of which are also to be affected by rezoning.
Columbus Avenue’s retail mix is remarkably diverse, encompassing medium-size boutiques and galleries, tiny neighborhood service shops, cafes of all kinds and even a few Irish bars.
It’s as far as possible from the takeover by giant banks, drug stores and chains the “special enhanced commercial district” pushed by council member Gale Brewer and Community Board 7 is supposed to cure.
The new zoning would impose complex, confusing limits on the widths and depths of new stores, restaurants and banks on the shopping boulevards.
Columbus Avenue BID chairman Robert Quinlan argues, “A number of stores in our district would not have been available in their existing sizes if the restricted zoning proposal” were already in effect.
The measure’s stated goal is to protect “neighborhood” and mom-and-pop stores from being pushed out by the 20,000 square-foot gorillas. In fact, Columbus Avenue has only a single large Chase Bank in the affected area.
The rezoning’s main provisions would generally require a minimum of two storefronts for every 50 feet of frontage on Columbus from 73rd-87th streets when spaces fall vacant, and on Amsterdam from 73rd-110th streets. They’d also limit any new store to a 40-foot sidewalk width and new banks to 25 feet.
On Broadway from 72nd-110th streets, new banks would be limited to 25 feet of sidewalk frontage.
There are confusing exceptions and nuances involving grandfathering and store depth. But the main effect will be to limit landlords’ leasing options and to complicate negotiations with prospective tenants.
BID executive director Barbara Adler says Columbus Avenue is unfairly caught in the rezoning’s cross hairs.
She noted that ample safeguards are already in place to preserve the avenue’s residential-retail character — including that the BID’s territory is “entirely within the Central Park West Historic District,” which inhibits large-scale redevelopment.
The Upper West Side’s leading retail broker, Walker Malloy’s Rafe Evans, said although retail rents vary enormously, they tend to run $250-350 a square foot on Broadway (higher at prime corners); $150-250 on Amsterdam Avenue and $150-350 on Columbus.
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Legends Hospitality Management, led by former Madison Square Garden CEO Dave Checketts, is moving from 200 Park Ave. to Charles S. Cohen’s 805 Third Ave. The firm, formed by the Yankees, Dallas Cowboys and Goldman Sachs, provides hospitality, merchandising and premium ticket services for the sports industry.
Legends is taking the 7,695 square-foot 31st floor. The asking rent was $60 a square foot. CBRE’s Sacha Zarba and Scott Bogetti repped Legends; a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Bruce Mosler repped Cohen.