Madison taps Zelnik to lease Warren space

Real Estate Weekly, Oct 31, 2007 by Daniel Geiger

Ever since staking out on his own last summer, retail broker Cory Zelnik has steadily been building an impressive list of leasing assignments.

Over the summer he was named the agent for a 13,000 square foot space at the base of 5 Times Square, a building located at the heart of one of the city's busiest and most expensive retail districts.

Now he has been selected by the landlord Madison Capital to handle a 3,700s/f space at the residential building 60 Warren Street. The building is also known as 81 West Broadway and the retail will have 65 feet of frontage on that busier street. Much has been said about the way downtown's more vibrant residential and commercial community has created a demand for retail. But leasing 81 West Broadway's sPace reflects the challenges still facing area.

Although it is just four short blocks north of the World Trade Center site and 7 World Trade Center and part of a strip of retail that has attracted an influx of tenants, the West Broadway block where it is located is still a stretch with a slow trickle of pedestrian traffic. Zelnik said that a new Barnes and Nobel, a Bed Bath and Beyond and a Whole Foods opening nearby on Greenwich Street will boost the area's prominence.

"It's a little quiet now," Zelnik said. "We're about six to eight months away from it going from a neighborhood that's beginning to thrive to one that's thriving."