Lidl’s love affair with New York City is continuing with another major retail lease.
The German discount grocery chain is leasing the bottom 23,000 square feet of MAG Partners’ 188-unit lease at 335 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea, Commercial Observer ReportIt will be Lidl’s second Manhattan store, joining a store that opened early last year at 2187 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem.
The 15-year lease will cover the basement and ground floor of the seven-story building at Eighth Avenue and West 26th Street. Asking rent for the first floor is $150 per square foot, and $60 per square foot below. The store is expected to open in 2025; MAG Partners, led by MaryAnne Gilmartin, is expected to break ground later this month, according to the publication.
The CBRE team, including Stephen Sjurset and David LaPierre, represented Lidl, while the Cushman & Wakefield team, including Alan Schmerzler and Sean Moran, represented MAG.
The Chelsea outpost is one of a handful of locations Lidl plans to open in the city over the next few years. The grocer was responsible for two of Brooklyn’s largest retail leases last year: a 33,000-square-foot deal in Crown Heights and a 25,000-square-foot lease in Park Slope.
Together with CVS, Lidl’s Park Slope location will anchor the ground floor of Billy Macklowe and Greenbarn Investment Group’s 180-unit rental project at 120 Fifth Avenue.
In addition to Harlem, Lidl has locations in Astoria and Staten Island.Its presence in the tri-state area has grown since then Acquired 27 stores Best Markets 2018 from Bethpage.While it expanded into the region primarily by taking over spaces vacated by other retailers, Lidl opened its first new location in Long Island earlier this year.
Gilmartin’s MAG Partners is building the Chelsea project on land it has leased from the board of Penn South, a 10-building housing cooperative surrounding the development site. The agreement required MAG to find a low-cost supermarket to fill the ground floor retail space.
Gilmartin ended its 99-year land lease on the property in January.source told real deal The lease begins at approximately $2 million in annual rent, increases annually and is expected to bring in more than $750 million in revenue over the life of the transaction.
MAG began groundwork early last year to make the project eligible for the now-expired New York Affordability Program, meaning at least 30 percent of units will be set aside as affordable units in exchange for tax breaks.
— holden warner
