This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Map of SoHo, by CitiDex
Yesterday I wrote about the exploding rents of SoHo Mall, and there were some interesting comments, specifically:
To see a jump from 70 bones a sq ft to 200 within 6-12 months has to have something more than location involved. I wonder if there was competition for the new space and it became a bidding war?? Sounds like a research project!!
So this got me thinking: what is the theoretical maximum leasable square footage in what is now, the SoHo Mall?
First, some ground rules:
- SoHo is generally considered to be bounded by Houston on the north, Lafayette on the east, Canal Street on the south and the Hudson River to the west.
- I am defining the SoHo Mall as the area bounded by Houston on the north, Crosby St on the east, Broome on the south and Sullivan on the west.
- Why? Because those are the areas I feel are more “mall-like.” And, because I’m lazy those blocks are all the same size.
- I might be less lazy in the future and change the size of the SoHo Mall, but this is good for now.
- I will only be calculating the first floor as the most desirable, knowing that often times the cellar and the second floors of existing buildings are often used in commercial retail.
- I will finally use an efficiency factor of .85 to take into account walls, stairs, elevators, etc which always eat into ground floor retail space.
OK, for those following at home, the SoHo mall (for this exercise) looks like this:
SoHo Mall
Inside the SoHo Mall boundaries, there are 21 blocks of roughly the same size: 200′-0″ x 375′-“0 which gives us an average block area of 75,000 SF, which gives us an estimated area of:
1,575,000 SF
Multiply that by the .85 efficiency factor and we get:
1,338,750 SF
Now to the fun part: let’s see what the owners of the SoHo Mall take in yearly from commercial retail rent. Which, when using the average cost-per-square-foot provided yesterday of $66/SF and the “premium” number quoted as $200/SF, we get this:
- $88,357,500 (@ $66/SF)
- $267,750,000 (@ $200/SF)
Nice! Of course, not everyone is paying the premium, and many commercial tenants are paying “sub premium” rent because they were smart and locked their rent down with a 5-10 year lease (but watch the yearly escalation costs!).
This was a fun exercise, if you have any comments leave it below. Nonetheless: Congratulations owners of the SoHo Mall! I’m sure you are hoping you have some lease renewals coming up so, don’t you?
I have a comment. Is this what you do at work? If so, and If I was your boss, you would so be fired by now.
But in all seriousness, i think it would be an interesting (but involved) experiment to take your methodology and nail down the occupancy type and use group of each building in your perimeter, the square footages of each occupancy and use group present, and any limitations that may exist in the area due to zoning. Then you could really calaculate what the average PSF cost for retail rentals is in the Soho Mall.
I also argue that you can’t really call anything a mall unless there is an Auntie Anne’s pretzel stand, and Soho does not have one of those.
It also needs at least one of the following (but preferably all) Piercing Pagoda, Spencer Gifts, and Sbarro.
Hell, forget all the occupancy and PSF stuff. I’d settle for a mall-style map of stores.
First of all: I didn’t post this @ work.
Second, if someone wanted to pay me to do that sort of research, I would do it. But that would take forever.
Lastly, I totally forgot about the “Auntie Anne’s Corollary” – do all of the “Nuts for Nuts” and pretzel carts make up for the lack of an Auntie Anne’s?
I submit that it does.
I’d consider Lafayette part of the Soho mall as well. There are some very good stores along that street from Houston down to Broome.
Technically, SoHo runs west to east from W. Broadway to Broadway and from Houston to Canal (I believe?) So, while for the purposes of this excercise of the “mall” it is fine to refer to and branch out beyond SoHo it does however, run beyond the recognized demarcation of what is termed SoHo. Thank you thesis project.
I think that you are referring to the landmarks district with your east-west SoHo boundaries Arno. I was at a CB2 hearing not too long ago where somebody showed a map of the landmarks district with the western line of demarcation running right down the middle of West Broadway.
I was always under the impression that before such neighborhoods as Nolita and West SoHo/Hudson Square came into existence, everything left of Houston & north of Canal, from the Hudson River to the Bowery was considered SoHo. And before that, it was all just called “downtown.”