New York might have always seemed like the ideal city for multi-level retail complexes—until you actually went into one.
By the turn of the century, such places in America’s densest city ranged from failed to mediocre examples of the genre. In the last decade, however, retail designers appear closer to figuring out the problem. Developers have brought a new attention to this retail paradox, now most dramatically in the form of Related Company’s forthcoming Shops at Hudson Yards, which, buoyed by recent lessons, is upending expectations about how multi-level retail works.
A preference for street-level retail in multi-story urban shopping complexes is often reflected in the rent and profits, which plunge with each ascending level. “First floor retail is golden, second floor retail struggles, third floor retail is a disaster,” says Nico Dando-Haenisch, project manager for Grimshaw’s Fulton Street Transit Center.
The Shops at Hudson Yards defies this concept by starting its interior retail on a plaza level one floor up and siting its signature draw, the city’s first and only Neiman Marcus, on the 5th through 7th floors. Such a plan would have likely seemed unhinged in the early 2000s, but in the last decade a number of surprising successes have sent retail skyward: the Shops at Columbus Circle (opened in 2003), the renovation of the former World Financial Center’s retail space into the Shops at Brookfield Place (opened in 2015), Westfield World Trade Center (2016), the Fulton Street Transit Center (2016), and additional developments at Pier 17 and elsewhere. These are part of a new generation of shopping center design, locating retail floors both above and below street level with a frequency not seen in decades.