Fairway Market to be Anchor Food Market at Hudson Yards

By Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor

Fairway Market has become the latest company to lease space in the South Tower of the Hudson Yards project, taking nearly 46,000 square feet on the ground floor of the first office high-rise to be built in the 28-acre mixed-use development on Manhattan’s West Side.

The developers, Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group, made the announcement along with Fairway Group Holdings Corp. Officials for Fairway, a New York City-based specialty food retailer that has been expanding in the tri-state area, said the Hudson Yards Fairway will be comparable in size to its stores at 74^th Street and Broadway and 86^th Street and 2^nd Avenue in Manhattan.

“Fairway Market has been a New York institution for more than 80 years and is the quintessential New York food experience,” Jay Cross, president of Related Hudson Yards said in a news release. “It is natural that Fairway Market was our choice for an anchor location that will become the new heart of New York.”

Fairway Market will lease nearly all the retail space in the South Tower, a 52-story building at 30^th Street and 10^th Avenue that will be the headquarters for Coach Inc., which is taking nearly 740,000 square feet in the tower. The building, which will have a total of 1.7 million square feet, is now 85 percent leased. Joining Fairway and Coach are cosmetics giant L’Oreal USA, which is leasing 402,000 square feet, and software corporation SAP, which took the top four floor totaling 115,000 square feet.

A spokesperson for Related Cos. and Oxford Properties told Commercial Property Executive that there is still 1,500 square feet of retail space available on the ground level. The spokesperson said developers had always envisioned a food market occupying most of the retail space in the South Tower. Both the tower and Fairway Market are expected to open in 2015. Related Cos., along with Abington Properties, is also building 500 West 30^th St., a Robert A.M. Stern-designed rental high-rise, across the street from the South Tower. The residential building is expected to open in 2014.

The developers broke ground in December on the South Tower, a high rise designed by Kohn, Pedersen Fox Associates. Primarily home to the old Hudson rail storage yards, the development will take at least 12 years to build out and cost between $12 billion and $15 billion. It will consist of 13 million square feet of office, residential and retail space. The new neighborhood, built by the popular High Line, will have approximately 5,000 residences, a new public school, cultural center and a luxury hotel. Already the fastest growing section of Manhattan, more than 40,000 people will eventually work in or live in Hudson Yards.

“Hudson Yards is the next great New York neighborhood and we’re excited to be an integral part of the development of this world-class location, and to be an amenity and food destination for the huge numbers of workers, residents, neighbors and tourists who will visit Hudson Yards,” Charles Santoro, Fairway Market’s executive chairman, said in the news release. “We continue to believe our growth prospects are outstanding in and around the tri-state New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, and are very pleased that Related and Oxford have selected Fairway as their food retailing partner in this historic real estate development.”

Fairway was founded in 1933 and went public in April. The company opened a 17,000-square-foot store last month in the Chelsea section of Manhattan at 6^th Avenue between 25^th and 26^th streets. A 66,000-square-store is slated to open in the fall at the new Shops at Nanuet in Rockland County, N.Y.  Fairway Hudson Yards will be the eighth location in New York City and the 15^th in the metropolitan region for the company.