Starbucks is often blamed for pushing out mom and pop stores, but some pundits now think that the coffee behemoth could get priced out of some of its stores — including one on Columbus Avenue and 67th street where the lease is coming up for renewal.
“There are more than 200 Starbucks locations in Manhattan, and more of the locations are coming up for renewal now as Starbucks, the largest coffeehouse company in the world, first entered the New York City market in 1994, with four or five opening that year and a surge of openings in the following two years, a source said,” according to the Observer.
“It’s likely that it’ll be very difficult to renew a number of those leases,” said retail broker Joanne Podell, a vice chairman at Cushman & Wakefield, who does not represent Starbucks.
The Starbucks on the corner of 67th street and Columbus Avenue is now on the market and the landlord is asking $140,550 a month, or $600 a square foot. The Observer spoke to a source who speculated that Starbucks currently pays about half that.
The listing says that a lessee can take “immediate” possession of the space.
For 140K a month, I’m not surprised they can take “immediate” possession.
Gotta make room for a bank or a new condiment store. We’ve got mustard…mayo, anyone?
good riddance!
Expensive, designer coffee just isn’t that appealing…
cathy c,
you guys should all band together and just stop buying it. that will fix ’em. oh wait….
What reasonable priced amenity do you expect to go in there? It will no doubt make you miss Starbucks.
It is to me! But Starbucks is neither expensive nor “designer” (whatever that means). I want Cafe Grumpy!
Because what we need is another Verizon store, right people?
I hate Starbucks because of the way they’ve colonized so many of our neighborhoods, but I hate landlords even more. Why is real estate allowed to automatically trump every other business in the city, destroying livelihoods & neighborhoods. #savenyc #commercial rent regulation.
Just curious Madeline R., who or what don’t you hate?
I was in Bushwick this weekend. I didn’t see any Starbucks, perhaps you’d like it better there? Of course someone did get stabbed a couple blocks from me, but I’m sure it was an authentic gritty New York artisianal stabbing.
If you asked some of the people on this site they’d tell you the Upper West Side is starting to resemble Bushwick. Up goes the crime with the rents. Marches are starting to block traffic downtown, time for yuppies to move to Jersey.
That makes me doubt they’ve ever been to Bushwick haha.
on a historical note, the City Commissioners and John Randel Jr. in 1811 created the borough’s grid design *in order to* monetize Manhattan’s square footage. It’s a double-edge sword: this move 200 years ago has made NYC the destination for business people and artists that it is today. Yet it also is prey to market dynamics. The best we can do is have active citizens on Community Boards and City Commissions making sure that the pendulum doesn’t swing too far toward capitalism (in this case real estate capitalists) nor toward socialist/populist re-distribution of wealth. A balance.
I’m not sure you understand the meaning of “colonize.” Let’s inject less knee-jerk rhetoric into the conversation and more critical thought.
real estate is darwinian. The whole world wants NYC. What would you do if you owned the property that you just bought with your on money 7 you had a mortgage, and you were fortunate enough to have a really good location that everybody wanted to rent for $140,000 a month.
Would you rent it to Starbucks for $70,000 a month? I know I wouldn’t! that it’s worth that much is mind boggling.
There will be many who say they have no sympathy for
Starbucks but Starbucks provides jobs and a reasonable resting place for coffee not to mention a low cost office for some. What replaces Starbucks on W. 67 won’t be for the likes of you and me.
They’re also one of the more enlightened employers, if that matters to you. All employees, no matter how low, get full healthcare.
I just moved to NYC recently and it’s amazing to me how many stores and shops have gone under since I’ve been here, including about four of five closed/empty stores within two blocks of me just sitting there empty. How is anyone supposed to stay in business…even Starbucks can’t deal! I’m very curious to know what will replace the Starbucks on Columbis and how quickly it will happen!
For reference, here’s the top 15 retails by sales per square foot as of about a year ago: https://www.forbes.com/sites/barbarathau/2014/05/20/apple-and-the-other-most-successful-retail-stores-by-sales-per-square-foot/
a little refresher, Starbucks closed its original NYC at 87th and Bway (BLVD) when lease was up.
a little perspective, New York is not “ruined” or “over” when a store closes, nor when another opens.
it just keeps on keeping on… change is the only constant.
Yes, change is the only constant But that doesn’t mean change is always for the better.
$140K a month sounds like peanuts to me, after hearing that Pearl River Mart’s rent was raised to $500K per month. (Not a typo.) And PRM is closing because of it. But it seems like a behemoth like Starbucks could swing the $140K rent.
Sounds super expensive to me for the size. Based on numbers in article it’s 234sqft. What kind of place in a space that small could possible have enough sales to support $140k/month?
Though the real estate site says it’s 2811sqft, which would be $50/sqft.
Note that Pear River is 30000sqft. So $500000/month for 30000sqft is $17/sqft/month. The proposed rent for Starbucks space at 170k is $50/sqft/month, or more than 3 times the ridiculous rent that is causing pearl River to close..
The NYC real estate bubble is getting larger and larger. Who knows at what point it will pop, but it most certainly will and a lot of people will lose a lot of money.
On a coffee related note, Average Joe’s which is near there has much better tasting coffee.
Rent control for stores long overdo.
rent controls for retail is not the answer.
Another layer of government control will only makes things worse.
But, I must say, UWS liberals are funny – now wanting to protect Starbucks (Starbucks!). whats next, Duane Reade? Chase.?Most landlords are small time compared to any of them.
Listen, this landlord is being way ridiculous in the asking rent. So you know what, it will sit empty. no one will pay that if it does not make economic sense. maybe then the ASKING rent will come down. Asking and getting are two different things.
BTW, with that new rent, the City will reassess the building and triple its taxes.
And the noncommercial rents will go up to cover the increased taxes.
that amount of rent for that size space is RIDICULOUS for ANY company. NY is getting too greedy, too expensive and too corporate.
So are you saying that if you owned the property, and you knew you could get $140k per month for it, that you would decline the extra $ and provide charity for whatever business moved in?
This is capitalism, not greed. Something is only worth what somebody else is willing to pay. A coke used to cost 5 cents. Does that mean that paying a dollar now is RIDICULOUS? Manhattan is the pinnacle of US real estate.
Please sketch for me the business plan that would legitimately generate the cash flow to cover this rent, other overhead, and make a profit.
And keep in mind the empty stores in the 90’s on Broadway.
I still find it funny that there are no Starbucks on Amsterdam above 71st St. Perhaps now that rents on Columbus are becoming unreasonable they’ll open a couple on Amsterdam.
Basically at $140k per month, they would have to bring in $4,666 per day just to cover the rent. Never mind paying employees, utilities, maintenance, paper goods, and um coffee beans.
I don’t know of any business model that could actually afford that kind of rent in that location.
(BTW, the $600 per sq ft is the annual rate per square foot)
Maybe we’ll be lucky and Duane Reade will come up with a “Duane Reade Express” chain that can take up residency in these smaller spaces. Or perhaps “H&M-To-Go”, “Gap In A Snap” or if we’re super lucky another bank!
That Starbucks is in a location that is beyond tremendous. I can totally see why the landlords are reaching for that type of price.
Not only do you have an affluent residential community, there is a relatively solid contingent of office workers in the immediate vicinity, tourists and strong foot traffic given the retail, and it’s a block from the subway.
Yes, NYC real estate is absurdly expensive, but I don’t see what’s so out of the ordinary here.
Just take a walk up and down Columbus, Amsterdam or Broadway from Lincoln Center up into the 80s and 90s and you will not walk a block on either of those three avenues without passing by at least one – more likely two or three – closed store fronts, with most of them closing over the past 12-18 months. On some blocks there are four or even five store fronts up for rent. Walk across streets like 72nd from WEA to CPW and you will see the same thing – store front after store front up for rent.
If they pay $140,000 a month in rent that would likely imply that they would need to make 3 times that amount per month after factoring in taxes, costs, employee salaries,…just to break even. That would mean they would need to do about $420,000 a month in sales just to break even. If they get an average of $5 per person, that would mean they would need to serve over 2,800 people every day just to break even. I doubt they are serving 175 people an hour, every hour of every day, for 16 hours a day. To break even!