Paul Gottsegen
Director of Management
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Photo: The makeover of the Sears building (far l.) has touched off a surge of retail development on E. Fordham Rd.
Applebee's exec Zane Tankel is plunking the company's fourth Bronx restaurant right in the heart of the borough.
"We want to be in the middle of the action," said Tankel, the chairman of Apple-Metro, Applebee's New York City area franchisee.
The site he chose, on E. Fordham Road, is across a cobblestone plaza from an old Sears building that's getting glammed up before it reopens.
There's lots of action these days in the central Bronx shopping corridor - and the catalyst is the redevelopment of the Sears building. Acadia Realty Trust and PA Associates are transforming it into a sleek, multistore retail property with a 14-story office tower alongside.
Fordham Place, at 400 E. Fordham Road, will also be home to the first Best Buy in the Bronx. The 40,000-square-foot store will open this fall, a spokesman for the electronics chain said. A new Walgreens, a 24 Hour Fitness and the made over Sears are all expected to be open in time for Christmas.
The $120 million project has inspired other Fordham landlords to move forward with retail development plans.
"It shows this is a neighborhood that people are willing to invest big dollars in," said Michael Tambasco of Halstead, the leasing broker for three storefronts at 52-56 E. Fordham that he's marketing separately and as a single, 10,500-square-foot space.
At 1 Fordham Plaza, the yellow brick and black marble office building at 440 E. Fordham where Tankel plans to build the Applebee's, 68,000 square feet of retail space is in play.
Tankel is renting more than 10,000 square feet of the space for Applebee's, which will be the biggest in the Bronx. The casual, budget-priced eateries are usually 6,500 to 7,000 square feet in size.
The restaurants localize their decor with memorabilia from nearby schools. If possible, Tankel said, he wants the memorabilia from neighboring Fordham University to include items from Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington's days as a freshman basketball player.
For nearly 60 years, the biggest draw on the mile-long stretch of E. Fordham between Third and Jerome Aves. was the Alexander's on the corner of the Grand Concourse, which sold classy clothes for cut-rate prices. It closed when the department store chain went bankrupat in 1992.
The next occupant of the building, a Caldor discount store, closed in 1997. The property was vacant until landlord Vornado sold it in 2001 to an investor group. In 2002, P.C. Richard & Son made a big splash by renting 35,000 square feet.
"It opened the eyes of large-format national chains and made them realize there is a viable market in the Bronx," said David Rosenberg of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, the leasing broker for the retail space at 1 Fordham Plaza.
Post Date: 9/21/2008
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