Marx Realty has announced that retail giants Target and H&M have signed new leases at the rebranded Cross County Center (formerly Cross County Shopping Center) in Yonkers, NY.
Target signed a 40-year retail lease to occupy over 130,000 s/f of retail space at what was once home to the most successful Sears store in the nation.
H&M signed a 10-year renewal to occupy 28,000 s/f where the retailer will incorporate its upscale SOHO concept.
“As the retail sector emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, we have seen extraordinary foot traffic at the center showing pent-up demand to experience the diverse retail, dining and entertainment offerings,” Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty, a New York-based owner, developer and manager of office, retail and multifamily property across the United States and division of Merchants National Properties.
The news comes shortly after Marx Realty took over leasing and management of the historic shopping center earlier in the year. The firm has owned the center in partnership with Benenson Capital Partners for 65 years. Cross County is the nation’s first open-air shopping center, which has benefited the center as it begins a multi-phase plan focused on expanding the center’s uses.
Since the 200,000 s/f, four-story Sears store closed in fall 2019, Marx Realty has been in discussions with various national, regional, and local operators to bring a town square feel to Cross County Center. This will be the first Target store in the City of Yonkers.
Cross Country was the nation’s first open air mall
H&M has been part of Cross County Center since 2009 and they have selected the center as their second location for a revamped, cutting-edge SOHO-style concept. The retailer plans to invest $5 million in the location. The first store to embrace the new concept is located in Manhattan.
Marx Realty was represented in-house by Mark Utreras, Target was represented by Jeffrey Howard of Ripco, and H&M did not use a broker.
“As an outdoor shopping center, Cross County Center has been uniquely well-positioned during this time,” added Deitelzweig. “Marx Realty’s experienced team of professionals was prepared to follow CDC and government guidelines and create a safe and healthy experience for visitors. We are delighted to officially kick off a new era for Cross County Center.”
Jim Stifel, chief investment officer of Benenson Capital Partners, added, “We are also seeing incredible demand from some of the nation’s best retailers who want a presence here and expect several exciting tenant announcements in the coming months.”
Target to Open 130,000-Square-Foot Store at Former Sears Location in Yonkers, New York
Target’s new store at Cross County Center in Yonkers, New York, will span 130,000 square feet. An opening date has not yet been established.
Yonkers, N.Y. — Target will open a 130,000-square-foot store at Cross County Center, a 1.1 million-square-foot retail power center in Yonkers, located north of New York City. Target has signed a 40-year lease to backfill a space formerly occupied by Sears. A partnership between Marx Realty and Benenson Capital Partners owns Cross County Center, which features more than 80 retail and restaurant users. An opening date has not yet been established.
YONKERS, NY — A new retail store will be opening at the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers and one that has been there has renewed for a decade.
The national retailer Target signed a 40-year lease to takeover the 130,000-square-foot space that was once a Sears store.
H&M signed a 10-year renewal for its 28,000 square-foot-space where the retailer will incorporate its upscale SOHO concept.
According to a spokesperson, shopping center has been rebranded as Cross County Center.
Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty, which took over leasing and management of the center earlier this year, said there is a lot of excitement in the area about Target coming to Cross County.
“As the retail sector emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, we have seen extraordinary foot traffic at the center showing pent-up demand to experience the diverse retail, dining and entertainment offerings,” he said in a prepared statement.
Cross County is the nation’s first open-air shopping center, with such stores as Macy’s, Armani Exchange, GAP, Michael Kors, Old Navy and Victoria’s Secret.
Marx Realty has been in talks to fill the space Sears vacated since it closed in 2019.
The new Target will be the first in the city of Yonkers.
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano said the city’s planning and development staff worked with Marx Realty to bring a “town square” concept to the center’s open-air design.
“Yonkers has hit the mark with Target’s plan for a new store at Cross County Center,” he said in a prepared statement.
“Target’s decision to invest in our city is a testament to the retailer’s confidence in our thriving economy and our business-friendly environment,” Spano said.
Target is making a long term commitment to Westchester’s largest city.
The retail giant announced that it has signed a 40-year lease to open a 130,000-square-foot store at the Cross County Center in Yonkers, replacing the bulk of the 200,000-square-foot location left by Sears that closed last year.
The 15-building Cross County Center is also home to H&M, which recently signed a 10-year renewal, as well as to Zara, Ulta, and Blink Fitness.
Target entered talks about a possible deal shortly after Sears closed in September last year, though nothing official was announced until Monday, Oct. 12.
“Yonkers has hit the mark with Target’s plan for a new store at Cross County Center, their first ever in Yonkers,” Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano said in a statement.
“Target’s decision to invest in our city is a testament to the retailer’s confidence in our thriving economy and our business-friendly environment. We are excited to get Yonkers back to business.”
Developers said that they plan to open up Target as soon as next year.
“Residents of Westchester County and the surrounding towns are over the moon to have Target coming to their backyard,” Craig Deitelzweig, President and CEO of Marx Realty, which signed the new lease said.
“As the retail sector emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, we have seen extraordinary foot traffic at the center showing pent-up demand to experience the diverse retail, dining, and entertainment offerings.”
Target’s ambitious metro-area expansion is a rare bright spot amid a gloom-fest of store closings and bankruptcies.
The mass-market favorite is planting its bull’s-eye at the Cross County Center in Yonkers, where it has signed a lease for a whopping 130,000 square feet, gobbling up the bulk of 200,000 square feet left behind by Sears last year.
The 40-year Target lease brings the occupancy rate of the 1.15 million-square-foot open-air shopping complex to 97 percent. The 15-building Cross County is also home to H&M, which just signed a 10-year renewal, as well as to Zara, Ulta and Blink Fitness. A familiar sight to motorists on the New York State Thruway and the Cross County Parkway, the center is not to be confused with the smaller Mall at Cross County next door.
The publicly traded Target is on an expansion binge in the city as well, with new stores planned on East 86th and West 125th Street and on Columbus Avenue — although none is nearly as large as the one at Cross County, set to open in 2021.
The complex’s leasing and management are now in the hands of Marx Realty, which owns Cross County in partnership with Benenson Capital Partners for 65 years.
Terms of the Target deal weren’t released. Rents throughout the center range from $45 per square foot to $250, depending on the location and size.
Marx and Target began talking about a possible deal within days of Sears’ closing in September 2019, but no word of the possible move had ever publicly surfaced.
Marx CEO Craig Deitelzweig said Cross County welcomes 11 million annual visitors, of whom 30 percent come from the city and most of the rest from Westchester and Connecticut.
He said the complex has seen “extraordinary foot traffic” as the region begins to emerge from the pandemic.
“We expect this Target store to be among its most successful locations,” Deitelzweig said.
Cross County hosts live music and outdoor movie screenings as part of its “town-square approach.” It has re-landscaped its green space as well.
Carlyle hotel sets reopening date
The latest marquee name to join Manhattan’s luxury-revival trend is The Carlyle hotel, where rooms run as high as $800 a night. The storied Madison Avenue hotel will reopen on Nov. 2.
SL Green plans to sell a condominium with garage/retail space in the heart of trendy Williamsburg — a move that reflects both the publicly traded company’s strategy of unloading non-core assets and the diverse neighborhood’s remarkable retail resiliency.
The 52,032-condo unit is part of a 10-year-old mixed-use building at 250 Bedford Ave. near the L train station. SL Green sold the property’s residential portion a few years ago but held on to the commercial space.
The seller hopes to fetch $40 million for what CBRE broker Dan Kaplan calls a “trophy retail asset.”
It includes a 30,000-square-foot parking garage that could be converted to retail with a future zoning change, as well as storefronts leased to HSBC and Duane Reade.
“HSBC just renewed on their space, an important commitment to the property’s value, until Jan. 1, 2026, with two extension options, and Duane Reade has 10 more years to go on its lease,” Kaplan said.
The building stands across from the thriving Apple Store and next door to a high-volume Whole Foods.
“Buyers understand the market power of Williamsburg, which appeals to local, national and international interests,” Kaplan said.
Offers are due by the end of October.
Williamsburg’s commercial spine along Bedford Avenue continues to thrive, according to Hank O’Donnell, founding partner of local retail brokerage GoodSpace.
“We’ve seen more national tenants coming to Brooklyn in the past eight or nine months,” he said.
The area lost some retail juice in 2016 when the MTA announced it was suspending L train service between Manhattan and Brooklyn for tunnel repairs. Rents fell for a time, but rebounded with a vengeance when the service-shutdown plan was canceled in January 2019.
O’Donnell cited retail rents in the area from $250 per square foot to $325. Recent or imminent store openings include Casper, Rains, Uniwax, Framebridge, Slowear and Away Luggage, mostly along North Third and North Fourth streets.
Offices at 545 Madison will be the first in the Plaza District to Experience Marx Realty’s Dramatic Hotel-Like Repositioning Strategy
Luxury Amenities with Signature Health and Wellness Features Create Excitement About Returning to Work
While the act of going to the office may be altered by the global pandemic, one constant remains: our need to be in a place where we feel comfortable, safe and have a sense of privacy that can easily give way to the collaboration needed to maintain a successful business model. Similar to how Ian Schrager transformed the hotel industry by creating a new sensory experience for guests, Marx Realty has pioneered the successful hospitality-like design aesthetic at its office assets for companies and their tenants, providing a much-needed lifeline for the office industry in times of uncertainty.
“We pioneered the hospitality aesthetic in the office sector and know how to quickly execute a transformation that makes tenants feel like they are walking into a luxury hotel,” said Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty, a New York-based owner, developer and manager of office, retail and multifamily properties. “It starts at the front door by introducing a complete sensory experience and continues throughout the building with thoughtfully designed amenity spaces and common areas.”
Marx Realty recently announced a $24 million repositioning strategy at 545 Madison after taking control of the 18-story Plaza District office building in 2019. The hotel-like re-imagining of 545 Madison will include two floors of pre-built office suites, a redesigned lobby with Marx Realty’s signature scent and exterior entrance with a uniformed doorman and new amenities that represent the perfect combination of health and wellness with form and function. A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Tara Stacom is managing the leasing and marketing efforts at 545 Madison.
“Industry pros are calling Craig Deitelzweig the Ian Schrager of the office space,” said Ms. Stacom of Cushman & Wakefield. “He rethought the office experience and his vision for bringing hospitality to office throughout the building results in a very unique and in-demand offering.”
News about the successful hospitality-infused transformation – and built-in wellness attributes – completed by Marx Realty at its 10 Grand Central asset spread quickly and by the time Marx Realty took control of 545 Madison, existing tenants were ready to renew and demand skyrocketed. For example, within weeks of taking control of the building, Marx Realty signed a five-year, 25,000-square foot lease renewal and expansion with financial software and applications developer Strike Technologies, and its electronic market making subsidiary Global Trading Systems (GTS). Soon after, Wells Fargo signed a retail lease taking 4,700 square feet of street level space at 545 Madison.
“When we transformed our asset at 10 Grand Central into a space that embraces a meaningful hospitality-like aesthetic, we knew the concept would have broad appeal across our portfolio,” said Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty. “The design sensibility combined with protocols that minimize the need to come in contact with high-traffic surfaces naturally gave way to sought-after health and wellness elements, a package that attracted high profile media, technology and financial services tenants interested in providing a welcoming space for their employees. We intend to duplicate this success at 545 Madison.”
As part of its strategy at 545 Madison, Marx Realty is programming materials that are antimicrobial and luxurious at the same time including copper and specialized fabrics while the uniformed doorman and lobby personnel will work in tandem to reduce the need for tenants and visitors to come in contact with surfaces. Marx Realty’s proprietary MarxConnect software interface will be implemented in order to minimize physical interaction. Although these health and wellness attributes have now become of the utmost importance, they have been part of Marx Realty’s signature design style since 2018. Various mechanical upgrades are also under consideration as part of the plan to reposition this asset for a post-Covid-19 office world.
Marx Realty’s plans to transform the lobby and entryway are reminiscent of a boutique hotel with a striking marquee and sophisticated neon signage created by a Brooklyn-based artist. The entry will welcome tenants and guests with rounded, fluted glass doors and blackened bronze finishes. Walnut wood and bronze finishes in the lobby will infuse the space with a hospitality feel while a variety of seating options and a well-stocked library will create a sense of community. Suspended walnut wood panels and golden lighting will create an ambiance reminiscent of the world’s finest hotel lobbies and complement the International Style of the building. Gentle curves will replace hard corners throughout the space and a signature scent, combined with mood music, will round out the soothing experience.
Also coming to 545 Madison: A new club floor with a lounge space, terrace and boardroom in order to provide tenants with additional space to work or unwind in a space outside of their traditional office setting. The lounge will feature various seating options and walnut wood and bronze finishes. A café with built-in appliances will afford tenants the ability to host catered events in the lounge. With outdoor space at a premium, the terrace will provide tenants with an urban oasis overlooking Madison Avenue. In order to accommodate large meetings and company gatherings, the boardroom will feature seating for 40.
David Burns of Studios Architecture is the architect working with Marx on the redesign of the lobby and creation of the amenity spaces. OTJ Architects will create the pre-built suites on the 3rd and 14th floors.
Jackie Kennedy Legacy Lives on in Marx Realty’s Hospitality-Infused Design at The Herald Office Building in DC
Before Jacqueline Bouvier was Jackie Kennedy, she was the “Inquiring Camera Girl” for the historic Washington Herald newspaper located at 1307 New York Ave in DC. Jackie interviewed people about local events all around the world and worked at the iconic newspaper from 1951 to 1953, right before marrying Kennedy, who at the time was a senator from Massachusetts and a frequent guest of the building.
Fast forward to 2020 and Marx Realty acquired the building, subsequently putting a $41 million renovation into motion. Constructed in 1923, the Beaux-Arts-style office building is known as the former home to the printing presses and offices of the newspaper where Jacqueline Bouvier parked her notebook. With ceiling heights ranging from 13’ to 19’7”, thanks to the former newspaper use, the offices at The Herald (www.theheralddc.com) will be unlike any other in the DC market.
Marx Realty is focused on adding a hospitality-infused aesthetic throughout the 120,000-square-foot office building. The revamped and reimagined Herald will honor its historic significance while, at the same time, bringing the first top-to-bottom hotel-like sensory experience to the DC office sector.
The repositioning will include an updated entry portal with oversized wooden doors attended by a uniformed doorman. The intimate marble-clad foyer opens to an expansive lounge and club replete with walnut wood and copper accents, ample seating areas and soaring 20-foot ceilings. Marx Realty is designing the highly anticipated Bouvier Club, an 8,800-square-foot lounge space within the building that pays homage to both the building’s history and Jackie Kennedy’s legacy.
The sophisticated luxury hotel aesthetic will be infused throughout with a new library including a stone-surround fireplace; plush velvet banquette seating; a café offering cappuccino, fruit-infused water and wine; an outdoor patio; and, a 40-seat, state-of-the-art board room. The Herald will also welcome tenants and guests with a uniformed doorman attending oversized wooden entry doors along with curated mood music and Marx Realty’s signature scent, another nod to the luxury hotel aesthetic.
“Many of the pioneering design elements coming to The Herald also represent health and wellness attributes that have been in place at Marx properties for years prior to the global pandemic that altered the office landscape,” said Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty “We are committed to designing beautiful spaces and an overall experience that provides a much-needed sense of warmth and tranquility, as well as safety and wellness, to our tenants and guests.”
The Herald will also boast a state-of-the-art fitness center featuring private workout rooms designed with the same meaningful hotel-like atmosphere Marx Realty has popularized. The workout oms, along with every shared space in the building, will include copper and brass along with other antimicrobial materials while the doorman and lounge concierge will work in tandem to reduce the need for tenants and visitors to come in contact with surfaces. Marx Realty’s proprietary software interface MarxConnect will be implemented throughout, further minimizing the need for physical interaction.
Additionally, the opportunity to create a building within a building makes this address especially attractive to a variety of firms. The opportunity for a company to secure its own private space in this historic building is unique, allowing them to capitalize on Marx Realty’s remarkable skill in creating a tailored office experience for a tenant in tune with the needs of its workforce. In the case of The Herald, this could mean a single tenant would have a separate entrance and access to as much as 50,000 square feet of space over four floors or as little as 12,000 square feet of space over two floors.
With The Herald, Marx Realty will bring a truly distinctive experience to DC, one that combines form and function and as well as health and wellness, a package the company has perfected since the highly successful repositioning of the award-winning 10 Grand Central building in New York. The repositioning will be complete by spring 2021 and is the result of a close collaboration between Marx Realty’s design team and David Burns, New York-based principal of Studios Architecture. Renderings and floorplans can be viewed at www.theheralddc.com.
Manhattan, NY Marx Realty has signed a 10-year retail lease with Wells Fargo to occupy 4,700 s/f of retail space at 545 Madison Ave. in the Plaza District. Marx Realty was represented internally by Henry Henderson and Wells Fargo was represented by Annette Healey of CBRE. The asking rent was $575 per s/f.
The firm is relocating its branch from 540 Madison Ave. and the move represents a desire to align its brand with the hospitality-infused repositioning strategy pioneered by Marx Realty. Marx Realty unveiled its $24 million repositioning of 545 Madison earlier this year after taking control of the 18-story office building in 2019.
“Marx saw incredible activity as we marketed the retail spaces at 10 Grand Central,” said Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty.
The hotel-like repositioning of 545 Madison–including two floors of pre-built office suites and a reimagined lobby, façade and entryway as well as 5,000 s/f of new amenities that represent the perfect combination of form and function as well as health and wellness–is a strong driver of asking rents for office space in the building, which are in the $87-115 per s/f range. A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Tara Stacom will manage leasing and marketing efforts for office suites at 545 Madison.
As part of the repositioning at 545 Madison, Marx Realty is programming materials such as brass and bronze and specialized fabrics that tend to be anti-microbial in nature, while the doorman and lobby personnel will work in tandem to reduce the need for tenants and visitors to come in contact with surfaces. These wellness attributes have been part of Marx Realty’s signature design style since 2018. Various mechanical upgrades are also under consideration as part of the plan to reposition this asset for a post-COVID-19 office world. David Burns of Studios Architecture is the architect working with Marx on the redesign. OTJ Architects will create the pre-built suites on the 3rd and 14th floors.
“We are excited to see nationally recognized brands like Wells Fargo recommitting to this part of Madison Ave.,” said Deitelzweig. “It’s especially rewarding to know that the firm chose this location based largely on Marx Realty’s commitment to reimagining the office building at 545 Madison with our signature hotel-like ambiance. It also reinforces the strength of the financial services sector in this enclave of Midtown Manhattan.”
Current tenants at 545 Madison include several investment firms and top-tier wealth management companies, including Permanens Capital. Financial software and applications developer Strike Technologies, and its electronic market making subsidiary Global Trading Systems (GTS), having recently signed a 25,000 s/f lease at 545 Madison.
Marx Realty was founded more than 100 years ago, and it has been thriving since Craig Deitelzweig took over as president and CEO in 2017.
Marx has been repositioning iconic office properties on the East Coast with its signature “hospitality-infused” designs. In 2019, Marx completed a $48 million renovation of 10 Grand Central in Midtown Manhattan, with a new lobby, entrance, amenity space and other features to the 438,000-square-foot building to give it a 1930s vibe.
The renovation won BOMA’s Renovated Building of the Year award, and pushed rents up by $30 per square foot. Marx signed over 193,000 square feet of leases since the announcement of the repositioning, bringing occupancy up to 94 percent. One example came in March, when Rubric Capital moved to 10 Grand with a seven-year lease at $88 per square foot. New and existing tenants also include MassMutual, Benenson Capital Partners, the Association of National Advertisers, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions.
Marx is in the process of a $20 million renovation with similar upgrades at the 140,000-square-foot 545 Madison, which will be complete by the end of 2020. In January, Strike Technologies expanded its lease at 545 Madison up to 25,000 square feet.
Marx is also expanding its signature redesigns in other markets. In April, at the height of shelter-in-place orders, Marx acquired The Herald Building, a 114,000-square-foot office in Washington, D.C., for $41 million. Marx plans to spend another $41 million on renovations starting in October. It is scheduled to be complete by spring 2021.
Deitelzweig said Marx is advancing its health-and-wellness focus since the pandemic hit. The firm has further developed Marx Connect, an app for touchless interactions with building systems. It also gives social distance “alerts,” temperature screenings, and more. It will become increasingly important in encouraging employees to return to the office.
“We’ve always been focused on health and wellness, so we really ramped that up now across our portfolio,” Deitelzweig said. “You now have UV lights in all of our buildings, we have ionization systems, sanitation stations and antimicrobial materials.”
The firm also took over management for the 1.15 million-square-foot Cross County Shopping Center this year, and will reposition it. Deitelzweig also expects to make more acquisitions this year.
“We’re looking at office products in New York, D.C. and Atlanta,” he said. “This quarter is going to be slow, but probably by the fourth quarter and quarter one [of 2021], we definitely intend to make acquisitions.”—G.C.
Marx Realty signs two new retail leases in Greenwich
July 17, 2020
Marx Realty has signed two new retail leases in tony Greenwich, CT.
Health-conscious salad chain Sweetgreen and Italian luxury clothing brand Eleventy will occupy new locations at Marx Realty’s 98-102 Greenwich Avenue.
Sweetgreen signed a 10-year, 3,100 s/f lease while Eleventy signed a short-term, 2,125 s/f lease. Both brands will benefit by opening their first Connecticut locations on the most desirable retail shopping destination in Connecticut.
Marx Realty was represented in-house by Henry Henderson on both deals, vice president of leasing. Sweetgreen was represented by Jacqueline Klinger of The Shopping Center Group. Eleventy was represented by Davie Berke of JLL. Asking rent was $120 psf for both.
“We are thrilled to welcome both Sweetgreen and Eleventy to a fantastic new location in Greenwich,” said Craig Deitelzweig, President and CEO of Marx Realty.
“On top of being surrounded by numerous national retailers along Greenwich Avenue, both properties are on a high-pedestrian traffic area and also offer the option to set up outdoor seating, especially key as we continue to navigate the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”
Marx Realty and Sweetgreen had previously signed a 3,500 s/f lease in January for a new location at 10 Grand Central, a 35-story Ely Jacques-Kahn designed office tower located in Midtown East neighborhood. Sweetgreen joined 10 Grand Central as Marx Realty was finishing the redesign of the building..
Sweetgreen chose to move forward with a second lease with Marx Realty as they believe the Marx team has design sensibility that aligns with its brand. The new location is expected to open late Summer.
Eleventy was looking to expand their presence in the east coast and into Connecticut. This short-term lease will enable them to set up a pop-up store in Greenwich with potential for becoming a permanent fixture in the area with a long-term deal. The Italian luxury brand’s new Connecticut store is officially opening on August 15.
