US Postal Service stamping its mark downtown

Real Estate Weekly, March 23, 2005 by Elaine Misonzhnik

The U.S. Postal Service is expanding its presence downtown.

The agency is closing its storefront at Bowling Green and signing at least five new leases in the Wall Street area.

In its first transaction, the Postal Service has agreed to a 5,500 s/f space at 63 Wall St., while two other deals are soon to be announced.

"The believe their customer base downtown will be expanding because the residential [sector] is doing so well," said Darrell Rubens, of Winick Realty Group, who represented the landlord, Metro Loft Management, in the 63 Wall St. transaction. "So they are opening up a couple of smaller locations, which will be between 5,000 s/f and 10,000 s/f."

James D. Riela, of James D. Riela Inc., who is representing the U.S. Postal Service, said that the agency has already signed at least two other leases, but he is not at liberty to disclose them yet.

"Because this is a government agency, everything takes a little longer," he said.

Riela did confirm, however, that the Postal Service is in a leasing mode.

According to Rubens, the UPS is following its example and has recently signed a 1,300 s/f lease at 5 Hanover Square, in a building opposite the new Postal Service location.

"They just opened last week and the owner of the store was very, very pleased with his business so far and is looking for the Postal Service store to open so they can feed off that," he said.

The asking rents at 63 Wall St. are $75 per s/f. The asking rents at 5 Hanover Square are $100 per s/f.