At a side-street location mere steps from Times Square, the Japanese restaurant chain Haru just signed a lease for 5,300 square feet that will have 80 feet of sidewalk frontage in 229 W. 43rd St. by its office lobby entrance.
CBRE’s Gary Trock, who repped the building’s retail condo owner, AFI-USA, along with colleague Lon Rubackin, said asking rents for the ground-floor space between Seventh and Eighth avenues was $250 a square foot — on a block that once had almost no retail at all.
In the center of the Times Square bowtie, retail rents are topping $2,000 per square foot.
Winick Realty Group’s Kenny Hochhauser acted as the agent for Haru while he was still with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Retail in this deal for the eatery’s new location. It will be considerably larger than its current spot down the block at 205 W. 43rd St. that will close.
In and around Times Square, after all, things only get bigger.
Upstairs, Yahoo! is among the incoming office tenants that will likely appreciate the food offering when it opens a year from now.
The West 44th Street side of the building already includes Boomer Esiason’s Stadium Grill, Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and Jekyll & Hyde.