SQUARE FEET/Near Lincoln Center; Goodness Gracious, Bed & Bath Is Coming!

Read article : SQUARE FEET/Near Lincoln Center; Goodness Gracious, Bed & Bath Is Coming!

''Concerned isn't the right word,'' said Robert Battista, Gracious Home's vice president for operations. ''There will always be competition. Our concern is what we do, because that's something we have control over. We like operating as a neighborhood store, with personal interaction. We identify customers' needs and use all the resources we have to satisfy them. Bed & Bath is more a self-service store. At Gracious Home, you can shop yourself, but we're not really self-service.'' Some product lines overlap, Mr. Battista said, ''but the categories of merchandise we sell don't match exactly -- basically we are different.''

Gracious Home, an East Side mainstay for decades at Third Avenue and 70th Street, ventured across Central Park in October 1998 and opened a 27,000-square-foot store on a stretch of Broadway between 66th and 68th Streets that is a mini-mall, with Barnes & Noble, the Gap and Gap Kids, Eddie Bauer, Victoria's Secret, Pottery Barn, Tower Records and the Loews Lincoln Square multiplex. The Gracious Home store is on three levels -- a small street-front space and two floors below ground.

The new competition, Mr. Battista said, is an opportunity ''to find out what we have to do to make our operation even better.'' And besides, he said, Bed & Bath ''will also bring customers to the area.''

Bed Bath & Beyond's decision to move into the densely populated Lincoln Center area was based on its two earlier successful Manhattan experiences, said Robert K. Futterman, a retail broker who represented Bed & Bath and its new landlord in the deal. The chain's first Manhattan store was in 50,000 square feet in Chelsea, at Avenue of the Americas and 19th Street, in 1992. In 2000, it opened a 90,000-square-foot store at First Avenue and 61st Street.

In selecting a new site, ''Bed & Bath didn't have a lot of choices,'' Mr. Futterman said. ''When you're looking for 53,000 square feet of retail space, that's hard to come by on the Upper East and West Sides.'' But, he said, the site was desirable, because of its visibility from Lincoln Center and its proximity to the 66th Street and Broadway subway.

Also, the Upper West Side has seen upscale residential construction and ever-growing gentrification in recent years. There was also the expectation that the new 350,000-square-foot Shops at Columbus Circle at the Time Warner Center would increase pedestrian traffic on Broadway -- an expectation Mr. Battista and several brokers said appears to have been fulfilled.

''The West Side is coming into its own,'' said Faith Hope Consolo, vice chairwoman of Garrick-Aug Worldwide, a retail brokerage. ''The density of street traffic is incredible. Retailers are realizing that residents there need the same goods and services you find on Third Avenue in the 60's and 70's.''

The Bed & Bath store will be in the base of a 30-story residential rental tower being developed by the Glenwood Management Corporation of New Hyde Park, N.Y.

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Bed Bath & Beyond was not Glenwood's first choice, Mr. Futterman said. ''Crate & Barrel was definitely somebody the owner was interested in,'' he said. ''But there was no interest from Crate & Barrel. The landlord would not consider a food use. Loehmann's was interested. There was some interest from Best Buy, but the owner was concerned about big crowds and kids hanging out. Bed & Bath was able to showcase its East Side and Sixth Avenue stores and convince Glenwood it would do a quality job in customer service and cleanliness.''

Bed & Bath will, like Gracious Home, be on three levels -- 3,000 square feet of street-front space, and 25,000 square feet on each of two lower levels. Mr. Futterman would not reveal the actual rent, but he said the asking annual rent was $200 a square foot for the ground floor, $50 on the first lower level and $40 on the second. The actual rent is lower, but the asking rent totals $2.85 million a year, or $237,500 a month.

BARI FAGIN, a spokeswoman for Bed Bath & Beyond, said the store was thrilled to be opening at ''a great crossroads of shopping, culture and the arts.'' But she said she would not comment on the proximity to Gracious Home.

With the opening of the Shops at Columbus Circle and the signing of the Bed & Bath deal, rents in the neighborhood have been rising, Ms. Consolo said. The annual rent for the new 10,000-square-foot, two-level Barneys Co-Op store opening this fall on Broadway between 75th and 76th Street, a deal she handled for the landlord, ''came in at about $200 a square foot,'' she said, and West Side asking rents are now often even higher.

Mr. Futterman said the nearness to Gracious Home was not a concern in Bed & Bath's decision. ''I think Gracious Home would be a little more concerned,'' he said.

Maybe not. Some people may resent the arrival of another national brand. Andreas Buettner, a West Sider for three years, said that ''it feels like there are too many big chains coming in.''

And after all, it's Manhattan, and different rules may apply. ''In a city like this,'' Mr. Battista of Gracious Home said, ''there's room for everybody.''

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