http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/12/03/2010-12-03_a_giant_buy_makes_quaint_village_street_.html
Fifth Ave., Madison Ave. ... and Bleecker St.? West Village corridor in blockbuster real estate deal
JASON SHEFTELL
Bleecker Street is officially the new Rodeo Drive after a blockbuster real-estate deal pushed prices for retail property into the realm of world-famous shopping strips.
The quaint West Village corridor, once filled with antique shops, delis and laundermats, is now home to the third-most expensive storefronts in the city.
Three properties were sold this week for $34 million, or $6,700 a square foot. The only retail units to fetch more since 2003 have been on Madison and Fifth Aves.
Commercial rents in the neighborhood have surpassed Bond St. in London and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The residential prices in the nabe also are the highest in the city.
"This street has more than arrived," says Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail for Prudential Douglas Elliman, which was not involved in Wednesday's deal.
"The Meatpacking District and SoHo can't compete with it anymore. Only Fifth Ave. and Madison compare. It's like the Left Bank of Paris over there, it's so pretty."
The three spaces - 367-369, 382-384 and 387 Bleecker - were sold to a U.S. real estate investment trust by Beck Street Capital. They have big-brand tenants; Michael Kors and Burberry recently signed long-term leases.
Fashion designer Marc Jacobs, who started the Bleecker St. retail explosion in 2001 when he leased a store at 11th St. and Bleecker, has six area shops.
Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Jack Spade and Juicy Couture all have Bleecker addresses.
Real-estate experts said rents in the neighborhood recently hit $800 a square foot. They're only $600 on London's Bond St.
The $34 million deal went to contract just three weeks after the property went on the market. The seller said the premium price shouldn't have come as a surprise.
"The area already had the highest residential prices in the city," said Kevin Comer, Beck Street Capital's senior managing director.
"It was only a matter of time that these blocks would experience a complete retail makeover. It was relatively easy to see that global luxury brands would find a home here."
As wealthier homebuyers move into the area, the retail cachet will only rise, and $6,700 a square foot could one day seem like a bargain.
Not everyone is happy about the big spending.
HelenAnn Lally has owned Your Neighborhood Office, a neighborhood package, mail, and concierge store, for 17 years.
It's on a stretch of Bleecker between W. 10th and Christopher Sts., where small businesses thrive - for now.
"I know we'll have to make a lot more money to stay on the block," said Lally, a Stuyvesant Town resident. "I hope we can generate the business to handle that."
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