New York hosted the grand opening of The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards, the largest retail real estate project in the United States in recent years.
The Hudson Yards shopping center is located in the multifunctional complex of the same name in the west of Manhattan and covers an area of 12 hectares. The open spaces included in it and the park will occupy about 4 hectares. The total area of the complex is more than 1 million square feet (about 93,000 sq.m).
The creators of the project, Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group, have invested $25 billion in Hudson Yards. Funds were invested in the creation of a huge complex over the rail lines running from the central Penn Station. In the future, it is planned to build the second phase of Hudson Yards West, which will be located mainly residential apartments.
The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards is referred to as a "vertical retail space". Seven trading levels are located between office multi-storey towers: north and south. The complex includes six high-rise buildings up to 300 meters high, including offices, the Equinox hotel, residential and non-residential apartments. Room rates at the Equinox start at $700 per night.
Other original buildings at the Hudson Yards complex are the $500 million urban arts center The Shed and The Vessel, a fifty-meter-tall structure with original 2,500-step flights of stairs and an observation deck.
It's already being hailed as the newest, shiniest, and biggest multi-billion-dollar development, an expression of what everyone is accustomed to seeing as a "mall." At the time of opening, The Shops & Restaurants is 90 percent leased. The complex will open 100 stores and 25 restaurant concepts, from fast food cafes to upscale restaurants. Three floors are occupied by the Neiman Marcus flagship store with an area of about 18,000 square meters, Coach, Uniqlo, Athleta, Banana Republic and Lululemon are already open. Brooks Brothers, Dior and Tiffany & Co stores are expected to open soon. Popular mass-market brands H&M, Zara and Sephora are also present at Hudson Yards.
The second level of the shopping center was called the "Innovation Floor": pop-up stores of fashionable online retailers are presented here. Digital brands are testing the viability of their concepts in traditional retail. Among them are the b8ta project, M.Gemi shoe showroom, Mack Weldon menswear and Batch home decor store. Adjacent on this level is the Snark Park Instagram Gallery and the 3den visitor lounge.
New York is one of the most difficult cities in the world for retail, so the creators of the project have provided special services to attract visitors. To lure residents and tourists away from Fifth Avenue and Madison is no easy task. To that end, Hudson Yards offers online stylist consultations, shopping delivery, concierge services and more for quality shopping in the 21st century. It is expected that when all tenants open in the shopping complex, the project's attendance will reach 60,000 people per day.
Scale, innovation, eye-catching atriums and mall décor created by trendy local artists all combine to make The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards a landmark for American retail. What is it - a new mall that will fight for its survival, or "New Retail", which is worth following up? Will show the future.
