Zara, the flagship retail brand of Spanish fashion giant Inditex, will soon open its new, multi-level flagship store at L&L Holding Company’s 222 Broadway.
The international fashion giant has signed a 15-year, 30,000 /sf lease comprising of a portion of the ground, second and lower level of the building, which is located on the full blockfront between Ann and Fulton Streets.
The store will feature an all-new two-story wrap-around storefront with a state-of-the-art double-height glass retail façade. It is expected to open in late 2014 or early 2015.
The modernist 222 Broadway, located in what is now referred to as “Downtown North,” a subset of the Financial District, is owned by L&L Holding Company, LLC in partnership with Beacon Capital Partners.
According to L&L CEO David Levinson, the leasing transaction is part of the ongoing, multi-million, Gensler-designed redevelopment of the building’s lobby, elevators and ground-floor retail space, which is located steps away from downtown major public transportation hubs – the Fulton Street Transportation Center and the Calatrava PATH Station at the World Trade Center.
Levinson also reports that L&L plans to move the building’s lobby entrance to Fulton Street, thereby creating the most dramatic retail space for the Zara store. The retailer will gain possession in the second quarter of 2014, after which it will commence work.
“Zara is a prime example of the world-renowned retailers who are discovering Downtown Manhattan’s vitality in terms of transportation, live/work opportunities, proximity to dining and shopping and other exciting features,” stated Levinson. “As the key connector between the redeveloped World Trade Center and the South Street Seaport, our new Downtown North retail redevelopment is helping to transform the streetscape and create more unified storefronts and facades on the corridor.”
The C&W leasing team of C. Bradley Mendelson and Alan Schmerzler led the efforts on behalf of L&L, which was represented in-house by David Berkey. Asking retail rents for 222 Broadway’s retail space were $500 per square foot for the ground floor, $125 per square foot for the second floor and $50 per square foot for the basement.
L&L also owns 195 Broadway, a landmarked, one-million-square-foot office tower on the full blockfront of Fulton to Dey Streets, which has approximately 40,000 square feet of prime retail space on the ground and lower level.
