By Holly Dutton
Lee & Associates’ Garry Steinberg and Jaime Schultz have brought another retailer to rapidly-changing Williamsburg.
Aesop, an Australian skincare company, signed a lease for 500 s/f at the Lewis Steele Building at 76 N4th Street, the duo exclusively told Real Estate Weekly. The company is a “boutique-y” all-natural brand, started in 1987, and currently has six retail locations in Manhattan. This will be its first Brooklyn location.
“They do really beautiful build-outs,” said Schultz. “It fits in here.”
Blue Bottle Coffee, which is currently at 160 Berry Street, between N4th and N5th Streets, will be relocating to the Lewis Steele Building, where Schultz and Steinberg are leasing the 18,000 s/f retail space on the ground floor. The coffee chain signed a 10-year lease for a 2,100 s/f space at the building.
The building is a recently-renovated 1930’s warehouse that will be developed into a mixed-use luxury rental building by Cayuga Capital and Jacob Toll, son of developer Robert Toll.
Toll purchased the 76 N4th Street site in 2010 in a joint partnership with Cayuga Capital Management, paying around $17 million. It was previously owned by developer Fifth Square partners, which spent $27 million in 2007 for the site and had planned to build 83 condo units before the project stalled during the economic downturn.
Independent bookseller McNally-Jackson and Steven Alan Home have already signed on at the building, both tenants were repped by Steinberg and Schultz. The bookstore, which opened in Nolita in 2004, signed a lease for a 3,600 s/f space last year.
Steinberg said they have fielded several offers from fashion and food tenants for existing spaces in the building.
The building is just across the street from the planned Williamsburg Whole Foods grocery store, as well as the future site of WeWork’s newest outpost, (which will be 40,000 s/f above the Whole Foods) and New York Sports Club. Restaurant Sweetgreen and clothing retailer J.Crew both recently opened nearby, at 162 N4th Street, and 234 Wythe Avenue, respectively.
Schultz is also marketing spaces at 150 and 152 Grand Street nearby. She is in negotiations with a restaurant for 276 Grand Street, next door to menswear retailer Paul Smith, for a 2,200 s/f space, with 1,000 s/f on the ground and 400 s/f of outdoor space.
Other tenants that have recently signed leases in the North Williamsburg corridor include clothing retailer G-Star, and restaurants Parm and Umami Burger.
