TJ Maxx joins the retail influx at JEMB’s Herald Towers

JEMB Realty is moving forward with the revival of a Midtown retail strip, convincing TJ Maxx to sign its first new lease in Manhattan in a decade.

The big-box retailer agreed to lease 40,000 square feet at Herald Towers in Herald Square, the New York Post reported. The store will occupy two floors of the building at 50 West 34th Street and is expected to open by the end of the year, representing the retailer’s eighth location in Manhattan.

The asking rent for the 10-year lease was a mixed $4 million, according to the newspaper Commercial observer. According to CBRE, the average rent for ground-floor retail on West 34th Street was $405 per square foot in the fourth quarter.

Jacob Jerome of JEMB told the Observer that the deal “reinforces the corridor’s role as one of the country’s most important shopping areas.”

Richard Skulnik of Ripco Real Estate represented the tenant, while JEMB was represented in-house.

The lease brings Herald Towers’ occupancy rate to 95 percent. Other tenants of the 110,000-square-foot property include Old Navy, MooMoo and IT Italian Trattoria.

Old Navy, Gap Inc.’s largest brand, agreed last spring to create a 52,000-square-foot flagship on the first and second floors of Herald Towers, then the largest retail lease of the year in Manhattan. The asking rent for the 15-year lease was not announced at the time.

Herald Square has been slow to recover compared to other Manhattan retail corridors such as SoHo and prime Fifth Avenue. According to CBRE, the area along 34th Street between Fifth and Seventh avenues had 21 ground-floor retail vacancies in the first quarter of last year, the second-highest among the 16 districts tracked by the brokerage.

Herald Towers was once the McAlpin Hotel, but was renamed after JEMB purchased the property for $150 million in 1999. The property also includes 690 apartments, with a studio asking $3,500 per month.

— Holden Walter Warner

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