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Wall Street is becoming the new Fifth Avenue
Drawn by some of the country s wealthiest households,a daytime work force that is doing even better, a bevy of swank condominium projects and relatively low commercial rents, blue-chip retailers are for the first time beginning to covet the street synonymous with money.
Last week venerable jeweler Tiffany & Co. said it is bringing its trademark blue boxes to the neighborhood of the New York Stock Exchange.
That followed Paris fashion house Hermès s disclosure earlier this year that it would open a store across from the Big Board.
37 Wall Street (future home of Tiffany) For now, the upscale retailers are focused in the immediate vicinity of the stock exchange at 11 Wall St. But retailers and developers who have watched a surge of luxury condos open in Lower Manhattan over the past three years believe the announcements could be the beginning of a broader transformation as high-dollar retailers follow their high-rolling customers downtown.
Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail leasing and sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman, says she has a dozen luxury-retail clients that have begun looking in the financial district in the past six months, including a very big Italian shoe company and a French perfumery that are in negotiations now. They haven t put their toes in the water; they ve put their arms and legs. Luxury is going to own the financial district by the end of this year, she adds. The south side of Wall Street from the exchange to the East River is almost all residential now or being converted to it. The fusty former headquarters of J.P. Morgan is being converted into Downtown by Philippe Starck, where condo units go for a minimum of $1.2 million. The new Hermès is moving into the first floor. Tiffany will set up shop next door at 37 Wall Street at the base of the former Trust Co. of America building, now being turned into luxury apartments. Cipriani Club Residences at 55 Wall Street Down the street model Naomi Campbell, actor Bruce Willis and movie producer Harvey Weinstein are moving into the former 55 Wall Street, which once housed the stock exchange, last was a luxury hotel and now is being souped up as the pricey Cipriani Club Residences. Last week real-estate broker Dolly Lenz flew to London to host a lunch for the Duchess of York and 80 of her closest friends -- to promote the Duchess s coming book and to help sell luxury condos at 55 Wall Street. By the end of a seven-hour event that also included breakfast, tea and cocktails, Ms. Lenz sold two luxury apartments at the building to friends of the Duchess. Even without royal friends, Lower Manhattan has among the best demographics in the country: A residential population with median household income of $87,000 -- roughly twice the New York City average -- and more of that income to spend because 81% have no children, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York, a nonprofit group representing business and property owners.The downtown residential population has jumped by 61% since 2001.