It’s all happening in Union Square’s south plaza:
July 10thThe very expensive new condo at 64 University Place will eventually have a very expensive bakery at street level. Dominique Ansel, inventor of the cronut, is bringing his talents to the street at Papa D’amour. Read all about it here.
Zappos — the Amazon-owned online shoe retailer — appears to be launching a brick-and-mortar location.
Zappos has leased the three-level, roughly 16,000-square-foot corner of 19 Union Square West at 15th Street that was previously home to American Eagle and its concept-store spinoff, AE Studio.
Next week (June 24 to June 28), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors inside the building. Additionally we will be working on the roofs of the building.
The following week (July 1 to July 5), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors as well as sidewalk work.
State of Play Hospitality group has signed a lease to open Flight Club, a technology-enabled darts gaming facility, at 31 Union Square West in Flatiron, Manhattan. This will be the group’s first venue in Manhattan, and its ninth lease for the Flight Club brand in North America. The location will be a global flagship for the brand. Flight Club will occupy a 10,700-square-foot space at 31 Union Square West, a 16-story Renaissance Revival building designed by architect Bruce Price. The building was constructed in 1902-03 as the headquarters of the Bank of Metropolis. It was designated a city landmark in 1988 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The brand’s new location is scheduled to open in late 2025, joining the building’s history of housing venues like Zippers nightclub in the early 1980s, Metropolis restaurant and club in the late 1980s, and Blue Water Grill from 1996 until recently.
“We’ve been looking for the right real estate opportunity to land Flight Club in New York for over five years, and this site has the potential to be a genuine landmark for the city and the group,” said Toby Harris, CEO of State of Play Hospitality. “Both 31 Union Square as a building and the stunning split level Flight Club space are as close to the physical brief for the brand that we could wish for. I’m confident that by complementing and retaining the character of the building, we will be able to do it justice.”
Since launching the first U.S. Flight Club in Chicago in 2018, State of Play has expanded the brand to Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Denver, with new venues set to open in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia in late 2024.
Union Square is bustling, with robust foot traffic recovery, a strong roster of new retail and office tenants, and new mixed-use residential developments in the pipeline.
Key data points from the last 12 months highlight the district’s strengths:
1.1M SF of office
space leased in the
last 12 months
58K+ average daily
riders at Union Square
-14th Street Station
13% higher visitor
activity on Greenmarket
days in USQ
370K average daily
weekday trips to the
Union Square area
78K+ SF of ground floor
retail space leased in
the last 12 months
Visitor traffic reached
a high of 109% recovery
over January 2020
DISTRICT TRENDS
USQ IS THRIVING
∫ Union Square’s residents have strong spending power,
with average household incomes nearly 75% higher than the
Manhattan average.
∫ By the end of 2023, visitor traffic hit 109% of January 2020
levels, driven by Union Square’s vibrant mix of uses and the
steady return of office workers.
∫ Leading employers choose Union Square, and the biggest
new leases represent finance, technology, hospitality, and
fin-tech.
∫ Union Square grew as a job center, with its workforce
increasing by 12% since 2023 to reach 168K employees.
The tech and innovation sector remains strong, with over 45
companies located in the area.
∫ 43 new businesses opened in the past year, 60% of which
are food and beverage establishments. Indicating a return to
in-person dining, the number of new sit-down restaurants in
the district increased by 25% over the number that opened in
the previous year.
