By Roland Li
With Borders’ liquidation imminent, Long Island-based real estate firm DJM Realty has begun marketing the book company’s remaining 259 stores across the country.
“We’re doing a broad-based marketing approach,” said Andy Graiser, co-president of DJM. “We’re really going after every type of retailer.” Prospective tenants have included big-box chain stores, supermarkets and even local municipalities.
The book giant’s shuttering will put two prime Manhattan retail spaces on the market, brokers said.
According to DJM, the current rent is $63.63 per s/f, with extra costs of $0.59 per s/f. The lease expires on May 13, 2021, with no renewal options. Extra costs include common area maintenance, taxes and insurance.
Charles Schwab & Co. and Chase Bank also occupy 2 Penn Plaza’s retail space, which totals 36,000 s/f.
A spokeswoman for Vornado Realty Trust, the landlord of the building, declined to comment.
The Borders store at 10 Columbus Circle is part of a large retail complex known as the Shops at Columbus Circle, with over 40 stores, including a Whole Foods. It is part of the larger Time Warner Center, built by the Related Companies in the early 2000s, and topped by two towers with offices, condos and a hotel.
Borders’ rent at Columbus Circle if $49.50 per s/f, with extra costs of $27.46 per s/f. The lease expires on Feb. 5, 2019, with two five-year renewal options, according to DJM.
A spokeswoman for Related declined to comment.
At Borders’ three recently closed New York locations, at 461 Park Avenue, 100 Broadway, and 576 Second Avenue, most of the spaces were returned to the landlords because high rents made it difficult to find new tenants, said Graiser of DJM.
Gene Spiegelman of Cushman & Wakefield is marketing the multi-level 100 Broadway space on behalf of landlord Madison Capital. According to the Times, the asking rent is $350 per s/f on the ground floor and $110 per s/f for the entire space.
DJM is also marketing the chain’s two airport stores, a 2,864 s/f space at LaGuardia Airport and a 1,815 s/f space at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The 2,864 s/f LaGuardia store has a rent of $69.83 per s/f, with additional costs of $19.01 per s/f. The 1,815 s/f J.F.K. store has a rent of $409.73 s/f, with extra costs of $5.72 per s/f.
Graiser said that a small group of firm’s national stores is scheduled to be put up for sale by the end of August, and the rest are expected to come on the market by mid-September.
He added that an improving retail climate should benefit the unwinding of Borders, in contrast to the frozen environment that greeted DJM’s efforts following bankruptcy of Circuit City and Linens ’n Things in 2008.
“Now, you have retailers growing again,” said Graiser. “This is an opportunity to get into a new market.
