Restaurant Devastation Continues

Union Square’s Competitive Edge

Exemplifying a “15-minute neighborhood,” Union Square offers a wealth of local amenities including dining, shopping, culture, entertainment, and healthcare, all within walking distance or a short bike-ride. A true mixed-use neighborhood, Union Square’s residents, offices, retail, and institutions help sustain a vibrant public realm, with recent visitor traffic reaching 98% of 2019 levels. Office leasing remains active, with over 450K sf of office space leased since January 2022 across tech, finance, publishing, and other sectors.

Union Square’s 126 new businesses are comprised of 54% eateries, 28% retail, and 18% neighborhood services such as health and wellness. USP and creative partners work year-round to bring unique cultural, food, and art experiences to the square. Events like the eight-week Summer in the Square series, Urbanspace’s Holiday Market, and seasonal pop-ups draw foot traffic and support local business and arts communities.

Union Square’s Rich Mix of Commercial Businesses

Union Square-14th Street is home to high-profile institutions and headquarters across a range of sectors including technology, media, finance, and design. This rich mix of commercial tenants continues to be a major draw. Additionally, Union Square is center of gravity for live entertainment, arts, and culture. According to the data platform Replica, spending on entertainment doubled between 2019 and 2023 and visits in the district rose by 10% between 2022 and 2023, reaching a high of 98% compared to August 2019, a 10% higher average than Midtown Manhattan.

“Industry leaders like Microsoft, Sequoia Capital, and Wellington Management are choosing Union Square for their newest offices. Coupled with strong leasing activity at the ground floor, these new tenancies demonstrate the area’s appeal across sectors,” says Julie Stein, Executive Director, Union Square Partnership. “National retailers including Parachute, Crate & Barrel and Target are joining local favorites ABC Carpet, Fishs Eddy and Design Within Reach to solidify Union Square as a retail destination for interior design and home essentials.”

USQ Thrives as a Job Center

Union Square is a job center with 144K+ workers across sectors. Top employers include Con Edison, Mount Sinai Downtown, New York University, and The New School. In the coming year, the addition of national brands, and new and renovated hotels in the area will bring additional retail and hospitality job opportunities. This summer, Microsoft moved into its new 150K sf office space at 122 Fifth Avenue. The building’s ground floor is nearly fully leased with prominent brands Allbirds, Parachute, and Pandora, and Levain Bakery planning to open in early 2024.

Zero Irving (124 East 14th Street) has made headlines for leasing nearly 100% of its office space to major tech and finance firms including GameChanger (25K sf) and Sequoia Capital (13K sf). Additionally, the 10K sf Urbanspace food hall introduced 13 vendors to the 14th Street food scene. Over 65K sf of retail space has been leased since January 2022 to national brands, such as Petco’s 30k sf flagship location on Union Square East, and NYC favorites such as Hex & Co board game café, Sweet Chick, and Kazunori.

“Because we’re located in the heart of the NYC tech community, Civic Hall @ Union Square’s six floors of state-of-the-art training and conference center space at the new Zero Irving building will drive sustainable pathways to high-tech jobs. Civic Hall will help supply the tech workforce and spur innovation for industry leaders, the community, the City of New York, and beyond.” Seema Shah, Executive Director, Civic Hall

New and Coming Soon’

Looking ahead into the Fall, we are excited to welcome Upright Citizens Brigade, Crate & Barrel, Saatva, Mission Ceviche, and many more businesses to the neighborhood.

• FÖRENA, a 50-unit luxury condominium development at 540 Sixth Avenue featuring 6K SF of new retail space for lease, finished construction in July 2023.

• NYU is relocating the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service to 105 East 17th Street in Fall 2024, bringing over 860 students and over 200 faculty to Union Square.

• Target will open a 33K SF store at 10 Union Square East, establishing over 75 new jobs and creating a retail anchor and local amenity for 14th Street.

A tempting lineup of sandwiches awaits at the compact new Make Sandwich shop from Spencer Rubin, who owns the Melt Shop chain. He hired Josh Sharkey, the founder of Bark Hot Dogs, as culinary director. The nine preset sandwich combinations, like tri-tip steak with salsa verde, range in price from $7.95 to $11.95. All sandwiches are made to order in five to seven minutes with ingredients like Parmigiano-Reggiano, organic eggs and Pain d’Avignon bread. You can devise your own from a long list of choices for $10.95, with extra charges for some toppings: Make Sandwich, 135 Fourth Avenue (at 14th Street), 212-398-2602, makesandwich.com.

Next week (September 24 to September 28), Material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors. Curtain wall installation on the upper floors will continue. Curtain wall installation on the lower floors will proceed along 5th ave inside the construction site. The crane that is on site will remain for the duration of curtain wall installation and will not affect pedestrian or automotive traffic.

The following week (October 1 to October 5) Material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors. Curtain wall installation will continue on all floors.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, September 22nd for superstructure related activities and curtain wall installation between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City. Con Ed is on site working on the building but is not in any of the streets.

Reps announce that Tortaria, the new Mexican sandwich shop and tequila bar at 94 University place and 12th Street, will open on Monday. The 65-seat space will serve tortas, taquitos, made-to-order guacamole, homemade salsas, hand-pressed tortillas, and a range of margaritas in a space that is the owners’ “reimagined take on the bodega.”

Here’s the pretty big news about upcoming traffic redesign and new pedestrian areas in and around Union Square:

A plan to reshuffle traffic around Union Square and add a new pedestrian plaza nearby has been given the final green light after months of contentious debate.

Community Board 5 voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Department of Transportation’s plan for the square despite continuing cries from a group of vocal residents who say the changes will only make traffic in the congested neighborhood worse.

The revised plan, which the DOT will begin implementing in the coming months, will restrict traffic to one-way westbound on E. 17th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South.

Broadway will be narrowed to one lane from 17th to 23rd streets, and a new pedestrian plaza will be added to the east side of Broadway between 17th and 18th streets. The exact design of the plaza, including whether or not it will have tables and chairs like Herald Square and Times Square, is still up for debate.

To improve traffic on Park Avenue South, southbound cars will be prohibited from turning left at 18th Street, while northbound cars will be banned from turning left onto 19th and 23rd streets, among other restrictions.

Numerous dedicated turning lanes will also be added, in addition to new protected bike lanes and revised parking schemes.

The DOT’s Ryan Russo said the department hopes the plan will make the stretch more pedestrian-friendly, less chaotic and cut accidents in half.

Nonetheless, a handful of residents continued to complain that they’ve been left out of the decision process and haven’t been given enough time to consider the changes.

“I think this plan is being rushed to the extreme and rammed down neighbors’ throats,” lawyer Milton Meyers, 63, a 20-year resident of 18th Street and Irving Place, told the standing room-only crowd at the CB5 meeting Thursday.

Artist Silvia Kolbowski, who has collected more than 300 neighborhood signatures opposing the plan, accused the DOT of caring less about improving safety than pushing through another pedestrian plaza as part of a larger city plan.

“If the issue was safety at the crossings, then surely this plan is overblown,” said Kolbowski, 56, who has lived on East 18th Street at Park Avenue South for a decade. The plan, she said, will create “nothing but chaos.”

While such opinions were overwhelming when the idea was first presented back in April, opposition has faded as the DOT has made revisions, including dropping an initial plan to completely shut down Broadway to traffic between E. 17th to 18th streets at certain times of the day.

Numerous organizations, including representatives from New York University, the Union Square Green Market, the Union Square Partnership, and Transportation Alternatives have now joined in support of the plan.

“This neighborhood has a chance to have some significant safety improvements that other neighborhoods are clamoring for,” dance instructor, Detta Ahl, 31, who lives in Morningside Heights but frequently cycles in the area, told the audience.

The plan was ultimately adopted on a ‘pilot’ basis, with a provision that the DOT return in three and six months after implementation to report on the results.