Brookfield to Double Its Retail At the WFC

By Etta Sanders
JULY 3, 2006

Attention shoppers: a new department store may be coming Downtown.
Brookfield Properties is looking for a store to anchor a significant increase in retail space at the World Financial Center.

“Downtown desperately needs to attract a big-box retailer,” said Melissa Coley, Brookfield’s vice president for investor relations and communications. “We’d like to attract a major department store.”

Brookfield would not comment on specific stores that they have had discussions with, except to say they are looking for a high-end retailer like Nordstrom, something that is missing from the Downtown landscape. “We don’t need to repeat the Century 21 experience,” Coley said.

Brookfield is “seriously exploring” doubling the retail space at the center, from 175,000 square feet to 350,000 by building out onto the grassy areas along West Street, and by expanding into the cul-de-sac south of 2 World Financial Center. Enlarging the size of the complex would require approval from the Battery Park City Authority, which owns the property.

Coley could not give a definite time frame, but said that Brookfield is hoping to make the changes “as soon as we can.” The company is assessing the costs of expansion and the impact of construction on existing retailers, office tenants and the surrounding area, Coley said. She added that it was also too soon to know what other stores may fill out the new space or if the plans will include a supermarket, something Battery Park City residents have long said they wanted.

The expansion plans are spurred in part by the increase in the residential population Downtown.

“With the growing residential community in Lower Manhattan there’s a need,” Coley said, adding, “It would be nice to have a one-stop shopping where you could get everything.”

But the World Financial Center will not be turned into a mall, Coley said. “Malls don’t have places like the Winter Garden and the North Cove marina.”

Battery Park City Authority spokeswoman Leticia Remauro said she could not comment on Brookfield’s plans. But she said that any changes to Financial Center buildings or public space would require the authority’s approval.

The additional 175,000 square feet of retail space at the World Financial Center is just part of the future picture of Downtown retail. The Port Authority has proposed to put 130,000 square feet of retail on the lower levels of the new PATH station and to create a five-level mall that would span the two planned office towers on Church Street.