Rumormongering: Macy’s Harlem
The rumor that just won’t die. Every few months there are reports of Macy’s looking for a location uptown.
This is latest from Women’s Wear Daily (WWD):
HEADING WAY UPTOWN: Macy’s is eyeing Harlem to open its first uptown store, although no deal has been signed. “We are always looking for opportunities but we never say where we are looking or where we may not be looking,” said Jim Sluzewski, Macy’s Inc. spokesman. One possibility is a 31,000-square-foot vacant lot on the southwest corner of Lenox Avenue and 125th Street, which stretches the entire block from 124th to 125th Streets. Macy’s reportedly checked it out but had no luck securing some adjacent buildings, which would have provided a bigger footprint for a store. Macy’s is said to be continuing to search the area, however. There is also a smaller empty lot next to the Apollo Theater and a vacant lot on Park Avenue and 125th Street where there is less pedestrian traffic. The 125th Street corridor is filled with small, moderately priced independent shops, discounters and street vendors. But in the past few years there has been an influx of chains, notably H&M, Body Shop, MAC, Old Navy and Aerosoles, and big boxes will sweep in next year with the opening of East River Plaza, under construction off the FDR Drive between 116th and 119th streets. Best Buy, Target, Home Depot and Marshalls have signed on.
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the harlem park project is experiencing a downgrade, thats why macys is unsure if they’re going to secure the space or not, and also, its not in a developed location. quite frankly i don’t think they should choose either location, both are entirely too small for a full featured macys, that harlem isn’t quite yet ready for. as far as east harlem is concerned, the entire stretch of 125th from lenox to 2nd avenue, will all be retail, with 3rd avenue on down being condos. east harlem is about to not look like it once did anymore. get ready.
These rumors are confusing. The “vacant lot on Park Avenue and 125th Street” must be the Harlem Park site, where Major League Baseball was in talks to become the main office tenant, presumably above the ground-floor retail which could have been Macy’s. I think that whole project either fell through or is on long term hold? It used to have a website but that’s gone now.
The Harlem Park site is significantly larger than the lot at the SW corner of 125 and Lenox, and the other lots mentioned in this article are tiny. I’m all for more retail in Harlem, but the fact that Macy’s was trying to “secur[e] some adjacent buildings” is concerning—they might be basically talking about buying up existing homes and businesses, kicking people out and destroying some great historic architecture to put up a big ugly block-spanning building.
The area around 125 and Park hasn’t been filled with chains the way the strip west of Lenox has been, but it still gets a steady stream of foot traffic. And I think they could definitely lour some commuters making the transfer between the 4/5/6 and the Metro-North. That area needs something… there are too many vacant lots and buildings in permanent construction limbo, and sometimes I feel like it’s a no-man’s land between Central and East Harlem that neither community wants to worry about.