[Photo from April 23]
Back in April, we noticed that someone had removed the for lease signs from the former St. Mark's Bookshop space at 31 Third Ave. … perhaps ahead of a new retail announcement?
Well, no.
There are just new signs up for the broker…
Now!
Last September!
Here's the description of the space via the listing at Jones Lang LaSalle:
• Neighbors include: Cooper Union, Organic Avenue, The Smith,The Standard Hotel, St. John’s University, New York University,TD Bank, Muji
• Surrounded by retailers, restaurants and corporate offices
• Manhattan’s hottest tech and educational hub
• Firms in the area include: J.Crew, Facebook, AOL, IBM Watson
• Over 65,000 undergraduate and graduate students in the surrounding area
• Consistent foot traffic with St. Mark’s Place, Astor Place and Cooper Square steps away
The rent is available by request. (St. Mark's Bookshop had been paying $23,500 a month here, according to the Times.)
St. Mark's Bookshop moved last summer to a new storefront on East Third Street.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Former St. Mark's Bookshop for lease
15 comments:
Unless a corporate chain business takes over this space anyone other business will fail here. More blandness coming our way folks.
I hope Cooper Union is enjoying the non-income after their rent hikes forced St Mark's Books out.
GREED IS KEEPING BUSINESS DOWN. JUST LOOK AT ALL THE CLOSED STOREFRONTS.
GREED. GREED. GREED. You just have to ask yourself, was forcing St. Mark's Books out better for everyone? It's already been empty for a year or so, hasn't it? How is that better? It's such a sty and it's SHAMEFUL SHAMEFUL capitalistic GREED. I used to go to that bookstore every single time I walked by, now I just shake my head in disgust, awaiting the FRANKENBANK that will come eventually. Do owners ever LOWER the asking rent if there is obviously no interest (as seems to be the case here)? Also, it's NOT that large a space.
Cooper Union did not NEED higher rent at this location, for which they have received NOTHING since forcing St. Marx Books out.
With the astronomical income derived from renting land under buildings around Cooper Square and under the Chrysler Building, Cooper Union did not NEED to violate its original mission of free higher education by charging tuition for the first time in its existence.
What Cooper Union needs to do is REMOVE the unnecessary "deans" who do nothing but lend their phony "prestigious" names and corporate connections to Cooper Union, for which they receive six-figure payments and other perks.
The current regime has practically depleted the college's cash reserves and have been floating the idea of selling off their assets.
It would be very nice if Cooper Union would extend apologies to St. Marx Books and BEG them to return.
Blight
When they bring out the guillotines next month the first ones on line for a free haircut should be the people running Cooper Union. They basically gave away the rights under the Chrysler building at below-market rates to a big developer, which blew their entire school budget for years to come, then pushed aside a beloved bookstore while ripping off students with higher fees. What a disgrace.
These overinflated real estate values are just making landlords lazy and indiscriminate. They don't seem to act like they have any stake in the success or failure of their commercial tenants. It really does seem like they will rent to anyone, without any regard for viability, or for how turnover and fly-by-night tenants might affect the perceived value of a commercial space (we all know of storefronts that seem to be "cursed") and/or the business of their other tenants. I know it seems unfair and that greedy, non-community based landlords are making out like bandits right now, and a lot of them are, but there are consequences to doing business like this. It'll catch up.
Yup, Cooper was short-sighted in their dealings with St. Mark's. That said, St. Mark's was not the best tenant and, no, they didn't pay their rent for months (sometimes years) which made things tricky. However, I would have been happy if Cooper had decided to invest a tiny bit in St. Mark's, to make it basically the campus bookstore and run all (of what's left of) their textbook traffic through St. Mark's. This has worked fairly well at a range of other independent stores (say, Labyrinth Books and Columbia) to slow down the demise of bookstores that are closely associated with the school and serve as a resource to their students. It's a fairly small thing but . . . St. Mark's was a remarkable resource for Cooper students (as well as the neighborhood and city). Anyway, blah, I hate to wish ill on Cooper but . . . an empty store is what they got.
All of the vacant spaces, formerly occupied by businesses that many of us have frequented and loved, are beginning to make NYC look like some shitty ghost town.
I pass by here a lot. I wonder what could be put there? It a big space, though somewhat awkward.
"Over 65,000 undergraduate and graduate students in the surrounding area"
REALLY?! Someone needs to define "the surrounding area" b/c it would have to be ALL of Manhattan. NYU has ~40,000 students, but they're certainly not all in the Village.
Smart move on part of Cooper Union on not renting, now they can command a higher rent before getting locked into a 10 or 15 year lease.
NYC has about 600,000 college/university students, so saying the Village has 10% of the total is not that far fetched. NYU has 45,000 students, The New School has 10,000, Cooper Union 1000, add in a few of CUNYs 450,000 students and you'e there. You know what all these students need? Books! Instead of students reading hashtags and emojis on instagram all day long, a nice bookstore would fit in well with 65,000 students, but Cooper Unon would rather have another sushi joint or froyo shoppe than a nice bookstore full of great art books and literature.
Does anyone know for sure what is the deal with landlords emptying storefronts to only have an empty space, sometimes for months and months? There is some kind of tax break or something, right? Otherwise, wouldn't they employ the old "bird in the hand" rule?
The place is hexed.
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