RXR Realty is planning to add 50,000 square feet of retail at the Starrett-Lehigh Building in order to provide amenities for office tenants hungry for shopping options on the changing Far West Side.
The landlord is planning a space swap with Verizon to free up the full block front along 11th Avenue between West 26th and West 27th Streets, Crain’s reported.
RXR bought the 2.3 million-square-foot building for $920 million in 2011 and branded it as a creative office hub for tenants such as Martha Stewart’s media company, the advertising firm McGarry Bowen and Ralph Lauren, which expanded to 100,000 square feet last year.
And while the effort has largely been a success, the building – which sits a few blocks south of Hudson Yards – is in a part of the Far West Side where retail options are few and far between.
In order to serve office tenants, RXR has been inviting food trucks to drive into the building’s oversized elevators and ride up to the office floors.
Work on the retail conversion is expected to begin by next year, according to Crain’s. The landlord already renovated and expanded the building’s lobby, and is planning to replace windows. [Crain’s] — Rich Bockmann