The Westfield Group wants to be champ of downtown retail – and is fighting Brookfield Properties for the title.
Westfield has signed dozens of tenants for about 360,000 square feet — nearly 90 percent — in the first retail properties at the 16-acre World Trade Center site, sources told the New York Post. The space is in the Transportation Hub Oculus and lower levels of two of Larry Silverstein’s office towers.
The global mall giant manages all the retail space at the site, which has asking rents from $500 to $600 per square foot. Apple, Abercrombie & Fitch, Swatch, J. Lindberg and Michael Kors are in the final stages for deals at the World Trade Center, which will have 460,000 square feet ready by 2015.
Brookfield has attracted Salvatore Ferragamo, Hermes and Burberry to its Brookfield Place, which will have 200,000 square feet available next year.
Westfield pays the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey $612.5 million for a joint-venture partnership to operate the retail complex, as previously reported. [NYP] — Mark Maurer