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Herald Center, the thriving Herald Square area’s ugly-duckling shopping and school destination between Manhattan Mall and Macy’s, is getting a $50 million beautification and a repositioning to banish its discount-center aura.
Owner JEMB Realty plans to replace all the black-tinted glass panels on the gloomy structure’s first three floors with transparent panes, as well as install LED lighting panels on floors 4-10.
“This black, ugly building is going to be beautiful,” JEMB principal Morris Bailey said. He described the property, which JEMB bought out of bankruptcy in the late 1980s, as “a source of frustration to us for a long time.”
Clothing discounter Daffy’s, also now bankrupt, moved in around a dozen years ago. Bailey called it “a long-term lease that encumbered the asset.” The site enjoys Manhattan’s possibly best subway and bus connections on a corner where 100 million pedestrians pass each year.
Daffy’s occupied nearly 100,000 of Herald Center’s total 250,000 feet. JEMB bought out Daffy’s leasehold interests at a number of locations last summer for $43 million, and the Herald Center store closed recently.
Now, JEMB has arranged for fast-growing ASA College, which currently occupies floors 2 and 3 of Herald Center, to move into all the old Daffy’s space on 4-7. The school will have its own entrance on West 33rd Street.
Meanwhile, JEMB will recapture ground-floor footage previously used as an elevator lobby for Daffy’s.
Combined with a few ground-floor spaces currently occupied by stores on month-to-month leases, freeing up the former ASA space on 2 and 3 and the Daffy’s elevator area will give JEMB potentially an 80,000 square-foot retail block to play with.
JEMB has tapped a CBRE team led by retail ace Susan Kurland to find new tenants. Bailey said the space could be leased to a single user or several — depending on demand.
Bailey said the asking rent is $1,200 per square foot for roughly 10,000 square feet at sidewalk level, $250 a square foot on the second floor and $200 a square foot on the third.
He said he expects to fully lease the space by next year. A new tenant or tenants will enjoy outdoor signing rights requiring no public approvals — including vertical signs up to 40 feet in height.
Existing black-tinted panes above the third floor will remain, but be covered by colorful LED lighting panels “that give off a beautiful glow,” Bailey said.
Herald Center between West 33rd and 34th streets, officially 1293 Broadway, was jinxed at its birth.
Opened in 1982 as a retail mall on the old E.J. Korvette site, it was one of four prominent Manhattan buildings secretly owned by Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos and his shoe-mad wife, Imelda, but fronted by New York brothers Joseph and Ralph Bernstein.
It opened with high-end retailers unsuited to the run-down area. JEMB took control in 1989 after a prolonged legal battle in the US and the Philippines. It inherited leases with Toys ‘R’ Us and several downmarket tenants and the property struggled through the turbulent 1990s.
As Herald Center limped along with a motley mix of users — including the state Dept. of Motor Vehicles — everything around it was on the upswing. Macy’s went more upscale. The Gap, Forever 21, Victoria’s Secret and H&M moved in nearby and prospered.
JEMB’s own Herald Towers across the street lured residents to 690 rental apartments forged out of the old McAlpin House. The city Department of Transportation closed Broadway from 32nd-35th streets to smooth the flow of traffic up Sixth Avenue.
But it also created unsightly asphalt-paved pedestrian “plazas” — like those in Times Square — in front of Macy’s and the Herald Center. Now, the DOT is planning to upgrade them with a new design that will bring them even with the sidewalk, “So you’re not stepping into the gutter,” Bailey said.
JEMB is working with the DOT, Macy’s, the 34th Street Partnership and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on the new look.
A little known fact: Herald Center has 180,000 square feet of unused development rights. But JEMB has no plans to build on top of the existing structure — only to maximize its retail potential.
“I think Herald Square is better for retail than Times Square,” Bailey said. “Because the people are shoppers, not tourists.”