Aby Rosen signs fashion company Totokaelo as first retail tenant at 190 Bowery
Image: Before the 2005 sale
It’s been two-and-a-half years since developer Aby Rosen of RFR Realty scooped up the former Germania Bank Building for $55 million. He bought it from photographer Jay Maisel, who in 1966 turned the then-abandoned landmark into his own private 72-room mansion. After removing the Nolita building’s iconic graffiti last summer, Rosen is now all systems go for his conversion to an office building with ground-floor retail. As the Post reports, Seattle-based fashion retailer Totokaelo (who counts among its designer offerings Acne Studios, Comme des Garçons, Jil Sander and Proenza Schouler) signed a lease for 8,918 square feet at street level. However, the deal only covers early fall through March 2018 for a large-scale pop-up store.
As 6sqft previously reported, the 1898-built building is being refurbished and converted “under the guidance of preservation architecture firm Higgins Quasebarth & Partners with the help of MdeAS Architects.” Initial plans included the “restoration of metal gates, wooden doors, stained glass (which was recently installed and unveiled) and an ADA-compliant street entrance on Spring Street.”
The office space on the upper floors has been leased to creative agency umbrella company Great Bowery, but Rosen is still looking to permanently fill the retail space on the ground floor, mezzanine, and basement, which boasts the building’s historic tall, arched windows on two sides. Though Totokaelo has an 8,400-square-foot store nearby at 54 Crosby Street, RFR Retail Executive Vice President Jordan S. Claffey said, “I’m optimistic that this short-term agreement will turn into a long-term one.” The asking rent for 190 Bowery’s retail space was $2 million a year.
[Via NYP]
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