Tourism may be down, but retailers are still making bets on Times Square.
Most recently, a souvenir shop signed a lease for 1,000 square feet of ground-floor space at 566 Seventh Avenue. The store will be paying $55,000 a month for the space, next door to the newly opened Margaritaville Resort.
On its face, a $660-per-square-foot lease for a new gift shop may not seem like a comeback story for the city’s most tourism-dependent retail corridor, where average annual asking rents are $1,480 per square foot, according to the Real Estate Board of New York.
But compared to two nearby gift shop leases signed during the pandemic — one at 516 8th Avenue and another at 681 8th Avenue — for $144 per square foot and $200 per square foot, respectively — the latest deal may presage some much-needed good news for landlords.
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash