[EVG file photo]
Well, 51 Astor Place/the IBM Watson Building/the Death Star has signed its first retail tenant, as the headline explained.
The Real Deal has the scoop:
Minskoff Equities’ angular, noir office building at 51 Astor Place has found a fittingly antiseptic lessee to sign on as its first retail tenant.
CVS, the pharmacy whose desire to maintain a squeaky-clean image led it it to stop selling cigarettes, has signed on to be the building’s first bona fide retail tenant since the retail space hit the market about two years ago, The Real Deal has learned.
The store is moving into roughly 11,500 square feet on the East Village building’s ground and concourse levels, according to developer Edward Minskoff.
Residents should be well-covered now with large drug store choices in the immediate area. There's already a huge Walgreens on Astor Place. And the Kmart on Astor Place with a large pharmacy area. Not to mention the recently expanded Walgreens on East 14th Street and Fourth Avenue … and the Duane Reade locations on East 14th Street and Third Avenue … and East 14th Street and Broadway ... and the Duane Reade that's rumored to be expanding on Third Avenue and East 10th Street. And… updated 5:03 p.m. Yes, and the Duane Reade on Broadway near East 10th Street...
Previously on EV Grieve:
3 retail spaces available at 51 Astor Place (22 comments)
You can finally shop at 51 Astor Place!
H/T to EVG regular Pinch!
42 comments:
bad service, bad attitude, not such a big deal from these chain stores
better a real drug store operated by humans that care about their store ad the customers
for that we have block drugs on 2nd avenue and 6th street
better to use them
Who's gobbling up all these Rx drugs, and why? Are my questions to you.
I'm so excited for this!
Block Drugs on 2nd Ave/6th St. is by far the best pharmacy within miles. Been going to Carmine for almost 20 years.
So this is how liberty dies…with thunderous applause.
Was in the Walgreen's on 14th Tuesday around 11:00 PM - for a prescription. In line: 30 people, purchasing one item each that could be bought from a local: 1 banana (with a fruit cart exactly outside the door), water (bodega 2 stores down), ice cream (bodega), yoghurt (anywhere), candy, cereal, etc. These newbies don't want to touch anything that hasn't been sanitized for them. They know Walgreen's, mall shops - and that's what they want. The new "drug" stores have been expanded to sell anything and everything that will sell - and put the ma and pa's out of business.
I was happy when CVS stopped selling cigarettes, non of the big chains had the balls or at least business savvy to follow. The next thing they should do is stop selling junk food and holiday candies. I will the gloomy, dark emptiness of the retail space in the Death Star, seemed appropriate.
At 11,500 square feet and a stupidly outrageous $350/sq foot (per The Real Deal), only a corporate behemoth would have the overhead to cover rent, and no-one wins accept the property developers. Unless a small business owner can cover $48 million up front for rent.
Wait, can $350/square foot be right?
Block Drugs on 2nd Ave/6th St. is by far the best pharmacy within miles. Been going to Carmine for almost 20 years.
Yes! A family-owned business, where every adult in the family is a notary—although to be fair, if you need a document notarized, you can also go to a funeral parlor. I've been going to Block Drugs since I lived on 5th street in the 80s.
For a 24-hour pharmacy, though, I go to the Rite-Aid on 5th and 1st.
You forgot the Duane Reade on Broadway near 10th!
On my 16-block walk to work each day I pass by 7 chain store drugstores, either Kmart, Walgreens, D/R or CVS, and most repeated at least twice. Now I can include the new CVS in my scenic stroll. The only one missing from this motley lineup is Rite Aide (a blessing).
Hey, I sometimes shop at CVS, and this new one is closer to home, but this chain same, same, sameness is getting old. Only big chains can afford current NYC rents for bigger spaces. But when will there be a saturation point?
I was just in a Manhattan CVS on 23rd & 10th last week. It looks like a Campus PX. Rows of beer, soda & juice, frozen pizza and burritos and a grocery isle with the morning of shame essentials. Plus they have the usual five and dime stuff, rubber balls, usb cables etc, and oh yeas, a pharmacy counter somewhere. I went in to buy birthday cards... their selection sucked.
But I get it... they're just catering to the transient "5 to an apartment" post college crowd who think they're still in college).
CVS on Astor Place ? what a fucking joke the EV has become... just as fucked up as the West Village now.
Could have been worse.
Could have been a bank or a froyo place or a drug store or a bank or a drug store or a drug store.
This is too depressing for words.
Great. Another CVS that will take 35 minutes to print my receipt with worthless reward coupons if I present my ExraCare card.
And as Anony 5.01 PM said, we are now just a fly-over state campus, catering to parental funded transients.
First there came a Rite Aid, and I did not speak out—
Because I sometimes bought stuff at Rite Aid.
Then there came Duane Reede, and I did not speak out—
Because I sometimes bought stuff at Duane Reede.
Then there came Walgreens, and I did not speak out—
Because I sometimes bought stuff at Walgreens.
Then there came CVS, and I did not speak out—
Because I sometimes bought stuff at CVS.
Then they came for me—because there was nothing left in the EV.
Are you freaking kidding me? Another CVS? Then why do they keep building these architectural wonders if all they're going to do is put in another chain store? I had visions of a four star Michelin restaurant, champagne flowing from waterfalls and famous people eating caviar off of the naked bodies of beautiful Russian models, with Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett singing while swinging from a trapeze. Instead they're putting in a campus commissary so they can sell NYU students more beer, frozen pizza and birth control? This is a total joke right? I feel like I'm on Candid Camera. Someone wake me up when this nightmare is over.
I'm SO surprised to hear this.
Block Drugs, yes.
Still miss the "old" Walgreen's - one floor, piled high to the ceiling with real stuff for real people, a veritable crazy rabbit warren, slightly gloomy and crowded, but great. When the "new" upscale Walgreen's finally opened, I went in to check it out, saw a few corporate types smiling benevolently at the awestruck crowds, and promptly went up to them and told them how God-awful horrible I thought the new place was, that it was nothing but shiny soulless crap and I would no longer be shopping there. They were not smiling when I left, but in the long run, nothing I said mattered. I just wanted them to know that not everyone had drunk the Kool-Aid.
Thank god! I was just saying the other day that there's no place to buy tampons and aspirin in the city.
I am puking. I will get back to a comment when I get through this.
Of course you all know this is for NYU.
How pathetic is it this space sat unwanted for two years and the best they could do was a CVS? lol!
I miss 14th street. Bought everything there when I moved in. Pillows, sheets, yes sheets, curtains, rods for them, shower stuff. It wasn't bed bath and beyond but prices were good and they had everything I needed to live happily. I am so sorry for what alphabet city has become. I didn't live in the easy village. But I was happy
Talk about lipstick on a pig.
I lived in alphabet city. And I miss what it has become every day. I have wonderful memories and photos. Though nothing can bring back the glory of the flower I will not GRIEVE not but remember what remains behind.
I meant I will grieve not. Not grieve not. Poor grammar. Sorry
Almost as good as the "luxury" The Copper Building on Avenue B with the 99 cent store in the ground floor. Well played!
A CVS moving into the Death Star is like watching herpes get cancer.
why did it take 2 yrs to fill this space?
I remember walking into Walgreens on 14th and 4th with someone because they had a craving for crackers, and needed to have them right then, even though there were double the price anywhere else. I saw that the Walgreens was selling sushi. I was thinking, "Who the hell buys sushi at Walgreens," when a millennial comes by, grabs a box, and stands in line.
Well, at least Walgreens knows their customers.
NYC Pharmacy. 206 1st Ave. bet. 12th and 13th. Mr. Ali is a good man and really caters to the community. Very worth supporting. Mr. Carmine at Block saved my life (sort of) and made me not cry (really) by being a real neighborhood store owner. Everyone - in the next 10 days, let's all stop in and make a purchase. <3 .
Because the Death Star is incongruous with the rest of the neighborhood. High end retailers won't make any money, local business could never afford the extortion, I mean rent, which leaves generic chains like CVS. And who gives a fuck about a CVS. Real estate developers will end up killing the city because it's one CVS after Walgreens after Duane Reade and people will stop moving here and paying top dollar to live in a strip mall.
what is the fucking point. as this article points out, the neighborhood is well served by drug stores already.
oh, rent.
Then let the millenials have their boring, sanitized city; it's awful. To live here now (and to keep paying these too high rents for SUBURBIA) is shameful. It looks like the town I fled to come to what was once the greatest city in the world, to me anyway. There are no words for this level of disappointment.
Mazel Tov to Moshe on the new... wait, sorry, wrong post.
I like the incongruous Death Star, but not the CVS idea, the only way to stop the CVS problem is to not shop there, I read somewhere the east village is second to only Herald's Square for most chain stores on the island
Take another little piece of my heart now.
The "asking rent" was $350/sqft...after two years the "getting rent" has to be a lot lower. I can't believe even CVS would sign a lease with a $4m a month rent, otherwise the location could never turn a profit.
I still agree with my kid that an arcade (not a hipster, adults-only bar with old arcade machines) and bumper car operation would have been a perfect use of the weirdly shaped space. He may be a kid, but he's not stupid. He also said that the bumper car place could double as a venue for the ABC No Rio Saturday Matinees when they renovate.
Anon 6:52 PM:
Have you tried Tampon Hut? It's located on the Stuy Dorm campus, near 1st Avenue and 16th.
Agree with one of the last commenters regarding it could be worse. But, how many more pharmacy/stores do we fucking need? Seriously? This is a joke and clearly illustrates the flow this neighborhood is heading toward. I can't even imagine what it will look like in five years. Due to the rising rents and expenses, perhaps it is best to move upstate or somewhere else. At least it will be cheaper and not full of bros and hipsters. :(
Ugh.
The Tampon Hut in Stuy Dorm is their best location!
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