The Shops at Columbus Circle

[Edward]

The seven-level retail component of the 2.8 million sf Time Warner Center (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/default.htm), collectively known as The Shops at Columbus Circle, will consist of a retail, restaurant, and entertainment complex totaling 350,000 sf of leasable space.

Once completed, the center will feature a mix of over 40 luxury and specialty retailers along with five world-class restaurants and a park view “one-of-a-kind” luxury bar. Major retailers will include Hugo Boss, Joseph Abboud, A/X Armani Exchange, Sephora, Cole Haan, J. Crew, Eileen Fisher, Thomas Pink, Coach, Stuart Weitzman, Tourneau, Whole Foods, Equinox, Tumi, L’Occitane en Provence, Coach, Bose, Borders Books, and Williams-Sonoma. On the second concourse level, The Equinox Health Club and Spa will create a 40,000 sf “club within a club," while Whole Foods will occupy 60,000 sf on concourse level one.

Other retailers: high-end eyewear retailer Morgenthal Frederics; European-based retailer 4You will move into 9,581 square feet next to J. Crew on the second level; menswear shop Thomas Pink; Crabtree & Evelyn; Eileen Fisher; Stuart Weitzman fashion boutique.



The Shops at Columbus Circle on 19 January 2004.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/shops_columbus_circle_19jan04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/default.htm)



http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/shops_columbus_circle_glass_19jan04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/default.htm)

[Gulcrapek]

How'd you get in there?

[krulltime]

Yeah...I have the same question. How can someone get in there? Anyway, when are the stores ready for the public? I heard by february but not too sure. :?:

thanks for the pics.

[Edward]

I have an agent at Whole Foods. :D

I believe Whole Foods is opening on February 4th, the shelves are already getting stocked with merchandise, other stores too might open the same time.

[Edward]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/21/dining/21WHOL.html
January 21, 2004
Black Tie Is Not Required
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

AT slightly less than 60,000 square feet, the Whole Foods supermarket opening on Feb. 5 in the new Time Warner Center will be the largest supermarket in Manhattan. It will take up most of the space on the first lower-level concourse of the complex, reached by escalators just inside the main entrance on Columbus Circle.

The chain, which has 146 stores across the country, including one in Chelsea, specializes in organic products and meat and poultry raised without hormones or other additives. The usual aisles of groceries, fresh produce, dairy, baked goods, butcher counters and seafood will share the market with about 200 running feet of prepared foods — about the length of a city block.

Among the choices will be a sushi bar with a few seats and sushi to go, a brick-oven pizza counter, two cold-food salad bars and a soup station. Hot-food bars will serve Indian, Latin and Pan-Asian food prepared to order and freshly roasted meats like leg of lamb with side dishes like macaroni and cheese and scalloped potatoes.

At a chocolate counter, the strawberries or cookies you buy can be dipped while you wait. And you can finish everything off with freshly roasted beans at the coffee counter.

There will be a cafe with 248 seats. A large display of fresh flowers will greet shoppers at the entrance. A shop for personal products like lotions, called Whole Body, is off to one side.

Whole Foods hopes to install an enclosed wine shop in part of the space, pending approval from the State Liquor Authority.

There will be 40 checkout counters. The market will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Delivery will be available, but orders will not be taken by telephone. The parking garage at the rear of the complex will have direct access to the store.

[Edward]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/21/dining/21TIME.html
January 21, 2004
Famous Chefs! Sumptuous Food! Luxuriant Settings!
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

TWO weeks and counting. On Feb. 4, some 100,000 square feet of marble floors will shine behind a facade of 90,000 square feet of glass, and more than 3,000 guests in formal attire will enter the soaring atrium of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle to celebrate its opening and the arrival of widely anticipated new restaurants on two floors.

They will have a chance to look out over Columbus Circle and Central Park from Per Se, Thomas Keller's $12 million restaurant on the fourth floor, where they may sample Mr. Keller's foie gras au torchon and even have a chance to wander through his custom kitchen.

They might have a bite of grilled beef in the gilt and scarlet dazzle of Jean-Georges Vongerichten's as-yet-unnamed steakhouse. And some may be tempted by a piece of sushi at Masa or Bar Masa, two new incarnations of Masa Takayama's breathtakingly expensive Ginza Sushiko in Los Angeles, which the chef closed in order to relocate to the center.

The party will continue on the third floor, with tidbits like a tiny lemon curd tartlet prepared by Gray Kunz and served near the entrance to his unfinished restaurant, Café Gray. The restaurant across the way, to be run by the Chicago chef Charlie Trotter, will not open for months, but his employees may be serving oysters, too.

Good stuff. But when can common citizens get reservations, or at least set up their speed dials to try?

The answer is: soon. (And for those restaurants that already have reservation lines, phone numbers follow.) On Feb. 5, though, the day after the opening, dining on the restaurant floors at the Time Warner Center will be extremely limited, just appetizers at Rande Gerber's Stone Rose, a bar and lounge on the building's fourth level.

There will be takeout food available from the Whole Foods Market on the lower level, where more than a dozen different food "stations" will offer dishes like sushi, pizza, soups, roast pork, macaroni and cheese, and Asian stir-fries, all made in the market's own kitchens.

Another choice is Asiate, the serene restaurant on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the north tower, a part of the complex which has been open since December.

But the star chefs are barely beginning to light their ovens. The restaurants, named the Restaurant Collection by Kenneth A. Himmel, the president of Related Urban Development and the project's quarterback, will begin to open their doors to the public in mid-February. All the pieces of the Restaurant Collection will not be in place until the fall, when Mr. Trotter's seafood restaurant and oyster bar is expected to open on the third level.

Nonetheless, even without dinner, crowds are expected during the early weeks. When the first of the estimated 18 million annual visitors to this $1.7 billion complex step inside the main doors they will be in a vast glass and marble concourse four stories high, like an amphitheater facing Columbus Circle and the park. Real estate developers might consider it to be an unconscionably frivolous waste of potentially rentable space, but Mr. Himmel calls it Time Warner's gift to the public. Aside from the restaurants, it is the distinguishing feature of the complex.

There are stores all around, among them Coach, Tourneau and Williams-Sonoma. Escalators sweep up to the second floor, where the rest of more than 40 stores are located, then on to the third level, where the dining options begin. Though Mr. Himmel bristles when anyone refers to the restaurants as being in a "mall," their location, above the ground floor, is what many observers of the New York restaurant scene consider to be their greatest drawback.

There will be another entrance on the 60th Street corner of the building, with a marquee for the Restaurant Collection, a doorman, and elevators that take eaters, not shoppers, directly to the restaurant floors and to Jazz at Lincoln Center, which takes up the fifth to seventh floors and will also have a cafe run by Great Performances, a catering company that provides food for a number of public places.

Guests at the Mandarin Oriental, residents of the condominiums in both towers, and people with offices at Time Warner and other companies in the complex will have elevators that arrive on the third floor. From there, special escalators continue to the illustrious fourth-floor dining rooms.

And when they finally open, if your table is not ready, perhaps you will find a comfortable seat in the public area overlooking the atrium and the park, or at the bar or a window table in Stone Rose, a huge lounge done in pale stone and richly grained rosewood by the design firm Yabu Pushelberg. (Stone Rose will also run a small lobby bar on the third floor.)

In addition to Yabu Pushelberg, the designers of the restaurants are as impressive as the chefs. Adam Tihany, David Rockwell and Jacques Garcia have all emphasized warm woods, rough-hewn stone, leather, gold, velvet and other luxurious materials to contrast with the hard-edge glass, steel and gray marble of the building.

For the restaurants and their retail neighbors, which will offer a range of prices and cuisines, this is what you will need to know.

STONE ROSE, a bar and lounge that will seat 300, with the capacity for 100 in a private room, will open on Feb. 5. Light food prepared by Jean-George Vongerichten's kitchen next door will be available. Reservations will be accepted beginning Feb. 5 at (212) 823-9796.

PER SE, on the fourth level, is opposite Stone Rose, across the atrium. After a series of tasting dinners and parties, it plans to open to the public on Feb. 16. Thomas Keller, the chef and an owner, will remain in New York during the first few months. His French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., is closed for renovations, at least until spring. Per Se, designed by Adam Tihany with elements that echo French Laundry, like a blue door and a wood-burning fireplace, has a spacious lounge area and bar.

The terraced dining room, in neutral tones with matched panels of Australian walnut and polished taupe marble from the Southwest that Mr. Tihany said is called "wildhorse swirl," has generous views on several levels. There are 74 seats in the dining room, a private room with 10 seats, and two other, more formal, interior private dining rooms that can seat up to 60. It is the largest of the restaurants at 13,412 square feet, and has an enormous kitchen, but it has one of the smaller dining rooms.

Though Mr. Keller plans to be in New York while the French Laundry is closed, and will be visiting regularly after that, the chef de cuisine in charge of the restaurant is Jonathan Benno, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who has worked at Gramercy Tavern and Craft.

The restaurant will have prix fixe tasting menus at $125, $135 and $150. It will be open for lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and for dinner nightly. Starting Feb. 2, reservations will be accepted at (212) 823-9335.

MASA and BAR MASA, which are both expected to open in mid-February, are the smallest restaurants in the complex. Their entrances are sea-foam frosted glass, and the rooms have walls covered with blocks of mottled Japanese Oya stone that Masa Takayama, the chef and owner, selected.

Bar Masa will have a sushi bar with 13 seats and a lounge area that will accommodate 26. Masa has 26 seats in the dining room, including two areas that can be closed off for private dining, plus 10 at the sushi bar. It will offer multicourse tasting menus at lunch and dinner ranging in price from $300 to $500. Reservations will be accepted after Feb. 15 at (212) 823-9800.

JEAN-GEORGE VONGERICHTEN'S STEAKHOUSE, as yet unnamed, is expected to open by early March on the fourth floor's 60th Street side. The food is based on Mr. Vongerichten's elegant Prime in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, a steakhouse that tilts toward France, with an array of sauces and side dishes. Here, the design, by Jacques Garcia, who did Danube for David Bouley, is pure fantasy, a "Midsummer Night's Dream." It has red walls, trellised borders and gilded trees with leaves and branches that graze the ceiling and are hung with fanciful crystal chandeliers. The design is meant to evoke nearby Central Park.

The restaurant will seat 120, and will have a private room to accommodate up to 40 people. The menu for lunch and dinner will be à la carte. Reservations will not be accepted until March.

CAFÉ GRAY, on the third level, designed by David Rockwell, will be a brasserie-style restaurant with an open kitchen facing the park. It is also to open in March. It will have 120 seats, with another 80 in a private room and 35 at the bar, making it the restaurant with the biggest capacity. Gray Kunz describes the food he is planning as "personal," with the subtle Asian touches for which he is known, and some classics, like the braised short ribs and mushroom fricassee he did at Lespinasse.

Mr. Rockwell's plans call for etched glass, embroidered leather and lots of chocolate brown with brasserie references. Armoires will display artfully arranged collections of ingredients and there will be an herb garden in the kitchen.

The restaurant will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner daily with à la carte menus. Mr. Kunz estimated the average cost of lunch at $35 or $40 and dinner at $50 to $75, not including beverages. Inquiries about reservations are being accepted at (212) 823-6338.

CHARLIE TROTTER'S SEAFOOD RESTAURANT, on the third level, will be informal, with an oyster bar. It will not open before fall. No name or designer has been selected and there is as yet no phone number for reservations.

BOUCHON BAKERY, also on the third level, will be a retail bakery and pastry and chocolate shop run by Thomas Keller. It is to open in mid-March. All the baking will be done in the kitchens at Per Se. There will be cafe tables with 24 seats for breakfast, light lunches of soups and panini, tea and supper; reservations will not be accepted. It will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

And ASIATE, the restaurant on the 35th floor in the second tower, off the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, is open for lunch and dinner daily. It has 86 seats and serves Asian-accented food by its chef, Noriyuki Sugie. At lunch there is an à la carte menu and prix fixe with two courses for $25, three for $35. The prix fixe dinner is $65 a person. For reservations up to one month in advance, the number is (212) 805-8881.

[Kris]

February 4, 2004

A Challenge to Shoppers: Rise to the Occasion

By GLENN COLLINS

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/02/04/nyregion/TIME.184.1.450.jpg
Time Warner Center, which will open to the public on Thursday, includes a four-story atrium with a view of Central Park and the skyscrapers on Fifth Avenue.

But will they go up?

Only the customers themselves can answer this crucial retailing question: whether shoppers will ascend the Time Warner Center's four-story atrium, bursting with shops large and small, when it makes its public debut tomorrow.

More than 80 percent of the center's retail outlets will be open when they are unveiled to invited guests this evening. Most of the building's much-anticipated new high-end restaurants, presided over by celebrity chefs like Thomas Keller, Gray Kunz, Charlie Trotter and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, will open in the coming weeks and months. Ultimately there will be 40 stores and 10 restaurants and bars at the $1.7 billion Time Warner office, hotel, entertainment, dining, condominium and shopping development at 10 Columbus Circle. But New York's fickle, street-loving pedestrians will have to brave two obstacles that have vexed many of the city's would-be vertical retailers: escalators and elevators.

The center's developers - the Related Companies and Apollo Real Estate Advisors - insist that the retailing mix in the multi-use building will be irresistible.

But "vertical retailing hasn't worked very well in New York," said Alan Victor, an executive vice president of Lansco, a brokerage firm that specializes in retailing properties.

Luxury shopping never had a chance at the Herald Center, on 34th Street at Herald Square. And Trump Plaza on Fifth Avenue, once synonymous with glamour, "had success initially as a specialty center, but lost its luster," Mr. Victor said.

Should customers deign to ascend in the four-story, glass, steel and stone Time Warner atrium, however, they will be enveloped by a 500,000-square-foot people-moving engine calibrated to deliver visitors and their credit cards, to a wealth of shoppertunities.

The complex is home to the new 865,000-square-foot world headquarters of Time Warner; a 251-room, five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel; 191 luxury residential condominiums up to the 80th floor; 200,000 square feet of additional office space; a 504-car parking garage; and the 150,000-square-foot Jazz at Lincoln Center with its three main performance spaces.

Then there are the Shops at Columbus Circle, as the retail stores are grandly branded, with 350,000 square feet of space that is more than 90 percent rented. Its developers are touchy when their new assemblage is likened to an urban mall. "The mall is a suburban paradigm," said Kenneth A. Himmel, president of Related Urban Development, the managing partner of the center's retailing component. "A mall is antiseptic, it has no architectural stamina and it's not culture-based. This is a different animal."

Then what is it? "This is an urban retail entertainment department store," Mr. Himmel said, "with great chefs."

Crucial to the center's grand design is the east-facing atrium at Columbus Circle, which has sacrificed 50,000 square feet of potential rental space to a soaring hall - modestly anointed "the Great Room" - with a curving, two-block-long gallery that affords views of the exterior streetscape and Columbus Circle.

"You will always be oriented to the street," Mr. Himmel said, "while visually, your eye will constantly be caught by people walking in the galleries, and moving through the stores." He disparaged other vertical urban retail locations "where you're enclosed by four walls, and feel like you could be anywhere in the world," he said.

The sense of vista and orientation is enhanced, Mr. Himmel said, by the curving, indoor, passageway paralleling Broadway that he termed "a great gallery like those in London, Paris and Milan."

The 57-year-old Mr. Himmel assembled similar mixed-use developments at Water Tower Place in Chicago and Copley Place in Boston. "The view here will be like a magnet," he said on a recent afternoon, standing on the fourth level and pointing to Columbus Circle and the Fifth Avenue massif across a snow-covered Central Park.

He added that the 3.4-acre site, at the juncture of Central Park and Midtown, is within walking distance of 35 million square feet of office buildings and is "the gateway to the Upper West Side," where there are some 265,000 potential shoppers. A somewhat smaller contingent from the Upper East Side is also expected to visit.

Though there is not an obligatory Gap or Banana Republic, the atrium will contain Manhattan's ninth Sephora, its sixth J. Crew and its fourth Williams-Sonoma.

But there are some new offerings, including the first free-standing Joseph Abboud fashion store - a flagship - and the first satellite of J. W. Cooper, a Miami-based luxury accessory retailer of buckles, belts and boots with prices ranging from $75 key chains to $20,000 gem-encrusted buckles.

"I think this customer mix will be a perfect fit for my store," said Todd Rauchwerger, the store's owner, who signed a 10-year, ground-floor lease.

But the center is hardly a playpen of super-high-end salons. "I can't upstage Fifth and Madison," Mr. Himmel said, pointing out toward the gold coast of the city's most exclusive retailers. "But our restaurants and our jazz can be world class. What we have here is a collection of worldwide destination restaurants, each of them hand-crafted - along with a broad spectrum of shopping choices."

Skeptics say that there is more than enough retail duplication in the metropolitan area, and visitors to the center are more likely to shop the Sephoras in their own neighborhoods. "No great retail space has shops that are 100 percent unique," countered Stephen M. Ross, chairman of the Related Companies. "And retailers know not to establish a store in a new location if it will cannibalize their sales."

That said, "moving people up in a development like this is the biggest challenge," Mr. Himmel acknowledged. And so, as visitors cruise the atrium corridors of brushed stainless steel, burled mahogany and book-matched rosewood paneling, they may not be aware of their role as charged particles attracted by powerful forces in a large-scale controlled retailing environment.

The two escalators leading up into the space have been aligned with the two east-west sidewalks on Central Park South, "as a subliminal invitation to come in and move up," Mr. Himmel said, using the u-word again.

Escalators will deposit visitors just where the developers want them: facing stores on lower floors, and facing Columbus Circle on the high-end restaurant level, the fourth floor. From the second level, two escalators will deliver customers to the front door of new restaurants presided over by Mr. Kunz and Mr. Trotter.

Jazz and restaurant customers, and those bound for the below-ground Equinox Fitness Club, can be whisked directly to their destinations by special elevator banks. "We feel that the restaurants will drive people to the upper floors," Mr. Ross said. Also driving traffic, he added, will be the condominium units, 70 percent of which have been sold. A studio tour of the new CNN television facility and its gift shop could continually replenish the upper levels with visitors, Mr. Himmel said. And Jazz at Lincoln Center on the fifth floor is expected to drive evening-hours traffic and deliver patrons to stores and restaurants before and after performances.

Rents are said to range from $350 per square foot on the ground floor to $65 per square foot up top. But several retailers said that the developers had offered incentives such as free rent and construction financing to lure sought-after tenants.

Mr. Himmel commented that although a few retailers had been given free rent to compensate for an opening that was delayed from last fall - and though several favored tenants were given concessions matching their construction cost - "90 percent of the space is on guaranteed rents," he said.

To its developers, the building itself "is an event," Mr. Ross said. But this raises the possibility that New York's been-there, done-that consumers will visit once, never to return.

The designers say they have anticipated this reaction by providing retailers that will regularly attract office workers, neighborhood residents and other repeat visitors, principally the 59,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market, which is to be Manhattan's largest supermarket.

Of the 17 million yearly visitors projected to circulate through the center, 3 million of them, Mr. Himmel said, will visit Whole Foods, which will have 42 registers. Its staff of 390 will offer fresh produce and prepared foods; specialty food stations are adjacent to seating for 248 people. There is a wine shop, a bakery, a brick-oven pizza station, a stir-fry station and a sushi bar with eight stools covered in nori seaweed. (You can buy a roast beef sandwich with blue cheese and roasted shallots for $6.29, but not a hamburger.)

Furthermore, the Equinox club "will build repetitive visits," Mr. Himmel said, as will a 30,000-square-foot Borders store.

Mr. Himmel notwithstanding, naysayers question whether large numbers of restaurant customers, Whole Foods shoppers, gymgoers or jazz patrons will have much inclination to do retail shopping - and vice-versa. These skeptics also say that Columbus Circle itself - and its raging traffic and pedestrian-unfriendly street crossings - could pose a scary transportation barrier to office workers, tourists and potential shoppers from the East Side.

Mr. Himmel acknowledged that pedestrian barriers were originally a concern of the developers, but said that a $30 million renovation of Columbus Circle, to be completed next fall, would provide new landscaping, paving and widened pedestrian corridors "to provide better access from the east," he said.

This refurbishment will also include a tweaking of the Columbus Circle fountains "by the same people who did the fountains at the Bellagio," Mr. Himmel said of the Las Vegas hotel that helped inspire the atrium. "Inside and out, this place will be great for New York."

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/02/04/nyregion/time2.jpg

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Edward]

The view of Columbus Circle and the statue of Columbus from The Shops at Columbus Circle (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm) on 5 February 2004.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/shops_columbus_circle_5feb04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm)



The gallery of The Shops at Columbus Circle (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm).

http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/shops_columbus_gallery_5feb04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm)



The Whole Foods store at The Shops at Columbus Circle (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm).

http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/whole_foods_columbus_5feb04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm)



The fish department in the Whole Foods.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/whole_foods_fish_5feb04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm)

[Edward]

http://www.shopsatcolumbuscircle.com/

http://www.shopsatcolumbuscircle.com/Images/Ground.gif

Ground Floor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Thomas Pink
2 Clio blue
3 Hugo Boss
4 J.W. Cooper
5 Tourneau
6 Davidoff
7 Morgenthal Frederics Eyewear
8 First Republic Bank
9 Maurice Jewelers
10 Stuart Weitzman
11 Coach
12 Cache
13 Tumi
14 Crabtree & Evelyn
15 Godiva Chocolatier
16 FACE Stockholm
17 L'Occitane
18 Joseph Abboud
19 Williams-Sonoma
20 Cole Haan
21 Jazz at Lincoln Center Tickets

[dbhstockton]

Am I wrong, or is there no subway access on the lower level? If true, it's absolutely scandalous.

[TLOZ Link5]

The subway entrance is on the first floor (floor 0 for any Europeans and Australians on the forum). I haven't heard about access from the lower levels.

[billyblancoNYC]

Man, Whole Foods looks like it's really going to struggle to draw business...

[Pottebaum]

Man, Whole Foods looks like it's really going to struggle to draw business...

Based on some of those pictures of Whole Foods , I can only imagine that you were being sarcastic Billy :P

[STT757]

17 L'Occitane


My girlfriend loves their products, I usualy get them for her at Sephora. I told her about the new store, she can't wait to go there next weekend.

The Whole foods store kind of looks like Wegmans, only smaller.

[alejo]

"The subway entrance is on the first floor (floor 0 for any Europeans and Australians on the forum)."


it is the 0 floor for the rest of the world except the US and UK

[TLOZ Link5]

K. But I'm pretty sure that they use the 0 floor in the UK, too.

[Kris]

February 9, 2004

Like 'Stamford in Midtown': Shoppers Pack the New Mall

By COREY KILGANNON

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/02/09/nyregion/09cent.l.jpg
A view of the crowd on Saturday at The Shops at Columbus Circle.

It took Diana Perdomo, a 22-year-old student from Manhattan, a several-minute stroll through the vertical shopping mall in the new Time Warner Center to arrive at a verdict about the place, known as The Shops at Columbus Circle.

"It's like a mecca for everything," Ms. Perdomo said, strolling arm-in-arm with her friend, Sarah Ladmer, a 19-year-old cocktail waitress. They gazed wide-eyed at many of the luxury and specialty chain stores, including Joseph Abboud, A/X Armani Exchange, Cole Haan, Eileen Fisher, Thomas Pink, Sisley, Stuart Weitzman and Hugo Boss.

The four-story public galleria of stores, restaurants and bars - the retail component of the $1.7 billion Time Warner Center at the southwest corner of Central Park - was celebrated with a star-studded opening last Wednesday night.

It opened to the public at noon Thursday, and has been much discussed in the retail circles and the media. But over the weekend, the mall faced its most important critics: the shoppers themselves. Just as in the blockbuster film industry, the opening weekend of a top-flight retail center is closely watched as a predictor of its long-term success.

"This is it, the magic moment," Kenneth A. Himmel, the president of Related Urban Development, which helped develop the retail operation, said as he stood on the second-floor balcony Saturday morning peering down as the first weekend shoppers streamed in through the massive glass doors. Mr. Himmel called the weekend a litmus test of the mall's drawing power and a test of whether New York's street-loving pedestrians would have the patience to ride escalators and elevators up and down four floors and trapise through yawning, crescent-shaped spaces that connect two city blocks.

"There was a time we didn't know if they'd come," he said. But come they did. Shoppers showed up in droves and there were high-profile sightings. Michael Eisner strolled in early Saturday morning and Chelsea Clinton waltzed through the first level toward the Coach store around noon. Passing a tuxedoed worker pushing a trash can, she chatted on her cell phone but withheld her opinion of the mall and all other comments, when approached.

Comparatively few of the thousands of people gawking at the new space actually carried shopping bags, and it was hard to tell how many visitors were actually buying. At any given time, hundreds of people milled through the fourth floor, for example, even though there were none of the floor's signature restaurants have opened. They squinted through darkened windows and peered at fact sheets.

One of the busiest stores was Whole Foods, whose 59,000 square feet make it the largest supermarket in Manhattan, with a wine store, sushi bar, juice bar, 248-seat cafe, 42 cash registers and 390 employees. Mr. Himmel smiled as a Whole Foods employee, posted at the entrance to the basement store like a bouncer, regulated the hordes of shoppers elbowing one another out of the way, to better ogle the $50 beef tenderloin and order Jamba Juice smoothies.

And since most New Yorkers are nothing if not critical, few shoppers reserved judgment on the new center

Ms. Perdomo, who compared the retail center to Mecca, also warned that it might be too upscale to attract a broad enough spectrum of shoppers. "They need more variety to attract different types of people," she said. "There's nothing down-to-earth. A good business has to offer diversity."

Jennifer Patel, 29, an internist from Manhasset, held up a purple macramé blouse in A/X Armani Exchange, where shoppers were offered sweeping views of Central Park and a soundtrack of pumping dance music. Ms. Patel compared the center to Long Island's malls.

"It's more upscale than Roosevelt Field, but not as much as the Americana," she said, referring to the strip of expensive shops in Manhasset known also as the Miracle Mile. "It is amazing how spacious it is for Manhattan."

Mr. Himmel bristles at the mention of the word mall or comparisons to suburbia.

He calls the center "an urban retail center," and insists that the m-word is "an antiseptic reference to suburbia that doesn't do justice to what this is, architecturally or otherwise."

Alan J. Segan, a public relations executive representing the center, agreed.

"I didn't hear the word 'mall,'" he said. "I don't want to hear that word."

But the m-word and the s- word were sprinkled liberally among the comments of many weekend shoppers.

A school counselor from Stamford, Conn., Mariane Bauer, stood outside the Bose store yesterday and said she felt right at home.

"This is like a piece of Stamford in Midtown," she said. "It's really nice that they brought the suburbs into the city." Ms. Bauer, who also has an apartment on the Upper West Side, patted her pocketbook and said she came ready to shop. "I've got my credit cards," she said.

Miok Joo, 32, in Armani, a financial analyst from Brooklyn, bought a $16 martini glass from Williams-Sonoma.

"I hate to say it but it is a mall; it's not Fifth Avenue," she said. "Not that that's necessarily an insult."

Mall or not, much of the clientele was unmistakably Manhattan. One woman carried her Pomeranian across her chest in a baby holder. Two women in long fur coats and carrying Yorkies stopped to introduce the dogs to each other.

Mr. Himmel said the center was not designed to compete with Manhattan's most upscale retail corridors on Fifth and Madison Avenues. But there are plenty of expensive items.

Williams-Sonoma sells French stoves upward of $24,000. Tourneau sells a Jaeger-Le Coultre diamond watch for $258,000. On Saturday, customers selected expensive cigars from the Davidoff store's plush humidor and sampled them in the private smoking room, furnished with plush sofas, rugs and original oil paintings. The store has diamond lighters for $40,000. A bottle of Budweiser at the Stone Rose (run by Cindy Crawford's husband, Rande Gerber) costs $8 and a glass of Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac costs $190. The average dinner check is $250. The adjoining Mandarin Oriental hotel has rooms for $595 a night.

It was too much for Sabrina Berryhill's pocketbook.

Ms. Berryhill, 34, a city employee from Queens, said she had heard that a new mall was opening, so she came with her daughter, Kiana, 3, to visit the toy stores. There are none.

"Not everyone is going to want to shop here," she said. "Budget-wise, there's no stores that I would really come back to."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[sunfly]

Low-cost luxury

A cheapskate's guide to the Time Warner Center

BY JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ


When the much-ballyhooed Time Warner Center celebrated its grand opening Wednesday night, fine-dining fanatics were thrilled to sneak a peek at the world's most fabulous food court.

They knew, of course, that five of the world's top chefs - Thomas Keller, Gray Kunz, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Charlie Trotter and Masa Takayama - are opening restaurants in the coming weeks and months.

Foodies desperately wanted to see what the Culinary Fab Five had cooking in the $1.7 billion Columbus Circle complex.

Case in point: At 9:30, nearly 100 people crowded outside Keller's much-anticipated Per Se, an East Coast outpost of his world-famous French Laundry in California. The fourth-floor restaurant doesn't even open until next month and guards were stationed at the doors. Still, undaunted guests gawked and cooed as they peered into the doors, looking like aunts and uncles adoringly gazing at newborns in a maternity ward.

Keller's baby, like other upscale restaurants in the atrium, comes with full-grown prices. Tasting menus will cost $125 to $150 - if (a big if) you can get a reservation. At the new Japanese joint, Masa, which chef Takayama hand-rolls out later this month, tasting menus are even more. As for other haute spots, it's unlikely you can eat dinner for less than $75. Breakfast and lunch, where served, will cost less.

Bottom line: Big chefs + big hype = big menu tabs.

But you can still get a taste of Time Warner without going broke. Dining at the bar and prix-fixe menus tend to save you a few bucks - even at fancy places. You could always have an appetizer and call it a meal. But why be hungry? There are other dining options beyond the poshest places. Inclusion in the Time Warner towers was competitive, so these establishments are no slouches.

Whether or not you buy the notion that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it's affordable. At Asiate, breakfast will give you a lift. Literally. The restaurant is on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Eggs with bacon runs $15, while oatmeal with raisins is $10. That's probably pricier than your usual order of poached eggs or porridge, but the view makes up for it.

Prix-fixe dining is another good way to save dough at any restaurant. Asiate's two-course lunch prix fixe is a bargain at $25. For a special-occasion afternoon meal, check out what world-class chef Nori Sugie has to offer.

TO MARKET WE GO

Closer to earth, on the mezzanine level, a gigantic Whole Foods Market has opened a 248-seat cafe. Nearly a dozen food stations are available, with an array of prepared chow - from salad and sushi to enchiladas and vindaloo. Everything's made in the market's kitchens.

But don't expect fine service. It's self-serve here, but once you grab a slice of prosciutto, fig and arugula pizza ($8.99 a pound) or sample the salad bar ($6.99 a pound, half a buck higher than the Chelsea Whole Foods rate) you can sit down in a cozy banquette or at a communal table.

"I think we're going to appeal to workers and people who live upstairs," says Richard D'Addario, prepared-food coordinator. "They can come down for a quickie breakfast, lunch or dinner." Or even a freebie. Gratis wine and cheese tastings are held Sundays.

Even if you're not rich, Keller's cooking isn't off-limits. "You can get the Keller feel and a fantastic little light meal at Bouchon," says a spokeswoman. That's the name of the superstar chef's bakery, on the third level, which seats 24. It opens next month for breakfast and light meals - soups, sandwiches and sweet treats. Depending on your appetite, expect to part with $10 to $30.

You'll find similar fare at Dean & Deluca, located in the Borders Books on the second floor of the atrium. Besides offering lunch for around $10, you also get a free side dish of WiFi. "Bring your laptop," says a spokesman. "Surf and soup."

Elixir, at Equinox Fitness Club, on the street level, serves up chow that's healthy and affordable to members and nonmembers. Popular picks include smoothies ($5.95 and under), low-fat wraps ($3.50) and salads such as the Omega-3, a mix of spinach, tuna, avocado, carrots, peas and walnuts ($6.95).

"Some people are intimidated by gyms," says Chris Peluso, Equinox chief operating officer. "Eating here, you can get comfortable with the surroundings and maybe even think about checking out the gym."

It's easy to get comfy at Stone Rose, a swank 300-seat lounge from Rande Gerber, whose nightlife empire includes the Whiskey, Cherry and other cool places. Cocktails here will run about $10-$15. Vongerichten will make Stone Rose's food, which an insider says calls "more refined" than typical bar grub. Translation: no beer pretzels or wings.

Gerber spent $10 million on Stone Rose, but he vows to keep food prices as skimpy as the waitresses' dresses he helped design. Figure about $12 for a typical small plate.

"We're going to get a lot of people from the building," says Gerber. "I don't want them to get the bill and be shocked."

Originally published on February 7, 2004 All contents © 2004 Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/200-foodcov.JPGhttp://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/637-food_sushi.JPGhttp://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/735-food_deananddelucca.JPG

[Pottebaum]

If anybody take any pics, be sure to share them :D

It's no Madison Avenue, but I'm still pretty impressed.

[Gulcrapek]

I have a bunch of pics from Sunday, I'll post them tomorrow.

[Pottebaum]

How many, dare I say it, malls are in Manhattan? I'd hate to see places like these hurt the City's shopping streets.

[TLOZ Link5]

Lessee...

1) Harlem USA

2) Columbus Circle

3) Manhattan Mall at Herald Square: gag!

4) Elizabeth Center in Chinatown: more like a shopping center with a lot of electronics and Asian imports stores, but it's underground and is blah architecture. No food court, though, but does have a nail salon with massages available.

5) Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport: the most mallish of the malls in Manhattan. Multi-levelled, lots of chain stores (Abercrombie & Fitch, barf), and complete with skylights and a big-ass food court.

6) The former WTC mall.

Feel free to add to this list.

[dbhstockton]

Rockefeller Center, old and prestigious, but definitely an prototype.

[Gulcrapek]

Shops at Citigroup Center?

[Pottebaum]

So do you guys think that The Shops at Columbus Circle will hurt street shopping? (ex. 5th Avenue, Soho, Madison)

[TLOZ Link5]

So do you guys think that The Shops at Columbus Circle will hurt street shopping? (ex. 5th Avenue, Soho, Madison)

Nah.

[TonyO]

So do you guys think that The Shops at Columbus Circle will hurt street shopping? (ex. 5th Avenue, Soho, Madison)

I don't think so. I work right across the street on 60th and I think its great, finally someplace good to eat close by (Whole Foods). To the immediate north is nothing much as far as competition, retail-wise. South and East of TWC is where it would draw away any business. I think it will make its own business in the area.

The word mall has negative connotations but this is not your typical mall. Its very vertical with multiple levels that look over Central Park and 59th. How many malls have a view like that?

Chicago has a similar indoor mall. I think its fine. There needs to be a variety. So long as NYC keeps the majority of its life on the streets where it belongs this is just a nice diversion.

[TLOZ Link5]

Think of it more along the terms of the Winter Garden, or perhaps the Galleria in Milan.

[Pottebaum]

I guess if places like this would harm the streetlife on NYC, we would have already seen in a while back.

[Pottebaum]

Anyway, I'd be surprised to see if the Shops at Columbus Circle have much staying power. Sure, the turnout was big for the first few weeks, but most of the people there were just checking it out.

Oh, and what sort of shopping is there right now to the south and east of TWC right now?

[TonyO]

I would be surprised if there is no staying power to TWC. Its got a prime location that will always draw huge crowds. People going to and coming from the park, the 59th St. subway interchange, Lincoln Center as well as its own Jazz at Lincoln Center and the MO Hotel. Let's just say if it does fail its not because of external factors.

The restaurants are another story. I checked a few out on the upper floors and they look really well done, probably with great views too. But that biz is tough. Almost certainly one will be gone within a year or two.

South is Times Square and East is the 5th Ave/Madison corridor.

[Pottebaum]

What's the 5th Ave/Madison corridor?

I think it will make its own business in the area.

And what exactly did you mean by that?

Sorry about all the questions...I just get really obsessive about things like these :P

[billyblancoNYC]

Simply the shopping blocks of 5th and Madison Aves.

Also, I think these restaurants have a very good chance for the long term. These are all places by, literally, some of the the best chefs in America. Trotter and Keller were not in NYC before this, Masa moved his place from Beverly Hills, etc. These places will be around, even in the "mall."

[Pottebaum]

South and East of TWC is where it would draw away any business. I think it will make its own business in the area.

.

So, if Madison and 5th Avenues are to the east of TWC, you think that the shopping blocks of those streets will be hurt?

I hope not!

[TLOZ Link5]

It might improve business due to the added competition.

[TonyO]

I hope not!

Its highly unlikely since comparatively TWC is much smaller than those established areas. And they are essentially only limited by available space for rent. TWC is not going to get bigger (although other retail may sprout up around it).

[Edward]

The escalator to Whole Foods at The Shops at Columbus Circle (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm). 16 February 2004.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/shops_columbus_circle_16feb04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm)

[fioco]

That's a terrific photo, Edward. The diagonals are exhilarating.

[Edward]

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040301ta_talk_gopnik
JUST LOOKING
A NEW MALL
by Adam Gopnik
Issue of 2004-03-01
Posted 2004-02-23

The new Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle long ago dropped AOL from its title, and a good thing, too. It is hard enough to put up a twin-towered building in New York now without its having to bear the name of a legendary disaster; given the resemblance of each of the towers—smooth, polished sliced monoliths—to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, there must surely have been moments when the developers wanted to turn the building on its side and bury it horizontally in the earth, dark and low, with sombre inscriptions of the names of all the employees who lost their nest eggs in the merger. Nonetheless, here it is, upright, happy, and sneering, as if to say, Hey, Chrysler and Woolworth’s aren’t exactly in great shape anymore, either, and look at them.

The part of the building open to the public is called, with simpering disingenuousness, the Shops at Columbus Circle, as though it were a high street, a rue des marchés. The cynical wise-guy thing to say is that it is a mall, and to be alternately snooty (do we want a mall ?) and anti-snooty snooty (but who are we to look down our noses at malls?). So the visitor inclined to be dubious about the conventional wisdom arrives certain that it is not going to be a mall, or, at least, that he will not see it as one.

Well, it is a mall. One enters to a giant Williams-Sonoma, winged by a Tourneau and a Hugo Boss, and then travels upstairs to a giant Borders (where the Tony Bennett CDs are, sinfully, stocked under “Easy Listening”), complete with a coffee shop where the kids drinking lattes and thumbing magazines look desperate to get out of this godforsaken suburb and into New York. Upstairs, the Restaurant Collection promises big-name chefs in not quite open dining rooms, but the more familiar term is food court. Also mallish is the slowed-down pace, an aimless, pick-it-up-and-put-it-down restlessness in the shopping rhythm—more Cherry Hill than Manhattan.

Yet malls are not without a history here. Putting aside arguable cases like Grand Central Terminal and the down-at-the-heels Manhattan Mall, what the new Time Warner Center and its shops really recall is the first fine blush of the Citicorp Center, over on Lexington Avenue at Fifty-third Street. Though callow youngsters cannot tell that building apart from the rest, it was, when it opened, in 1977, a very big deal, and it served a similar function: it was a large building put up by a large local corporation as a demonstration of faith in the city, and it, too, had a mall. Inside, there were tony shops connected by escalators, and—remember?—the era’s tony restaurants, which depended on their little bit of theatre. It had a French restaurant called Les Tournebroches, where you could actually see your dinner spinning on its spit, and a Hungarian restaurant where you could cut your own piece off a giant Hungarian sausage tree. The original Conran’s, with its cheap, well-made, well-chosen furniture, was the signature tenant, the Williams-Sonoma of its day.

Only when you descend to the lower level of the new Time Warner complex do you return to our own time and place—the giant Whole Foods supermarket, where organic prepared foods and organic raw foods are laid out in an abundance that puts every other food hall in this city (or any other) to shame. The smell of Indian spices rises from lentil soups; the racks of lamb in the butcher’s case are tiny and pale; the fish glisten and the peppers gleam. And all of it is insistently virtuous. Farm-raised, “naturally fed,” uncaged, honest, healthy. The temperature, the sense of engagement of New Yorkers, is evident here, too. It’s like Fairway without the traffic jams, Dean & Deluca but five times larger, Zabar’s without even the distant memory of sawdust and herring. People are really shopping down here, not looking.

This, one realizes, is their faith, our faith. Where three decades ago at the Citicorp mall we placed our faith in money and furniture, in the tangible assets of middle-class life, now we place it in things to cook and things to cook with, in Whole Foods and Williams-Sonoma—in an aesthetic whose key ingredient is its evanescence, its heretonight, eaten-by-tomorrow instability. Our faith in shopping may be as strong as ever, but our faith in future time, on the evidence centered here, is a little shaky.

[Pottebaum]

When I get worried about places like this sort of having the mall effect shown in small cities, I think I am simply fogetting how HUGE NYC is. A 4 story mall with 40 stores isn't going to hurt the cities street shopping. There are too many consumers to let that happen! In my mind, I've been blowing this thing WAY out of proportion.

[Kris]

http://www.bluejake.com/archives/2004/02/22/time_warner_center.php

[TLOZ Link5]

I went to the shops last Friday and was very impressed.

[Edward]

Press Release Source: Evian


Join Lauren Bush, Presidential Niece and Elite Model in NYC 3/26
Thursday March 25, 1:29 pm ET
As Evian Officially Welcomes Spring with a Gift of 10,000 Exotic Flowers to NYC Tomorrow at 8:30 am The Time Warner Center
10,000 Exotic Flowers in Evian Natural Spring Water for Inaugural 'Garden of Evian' to be unveiled by Model Lauren Bush on Friday morning!!


NEW YORK, March 25 /PRNewswire/ --
WHO: Model Lauren Bush and Evian Natural Spring Water will present the
"Garden of Evian," created by renowned celebrity floral and event
designer Bronson Van Wyck, and showcased for a limited engagement
at New York's newest landmark, The Shops At Columbus Circle at
Time Warner Center. The event will launch Evian's new national
advertising campaign and tagline: evian. your natural source of
youth.(TM)

WHAT: The Garden of Evian will bloom in New York City for two days and
will include more than 10,000 flowers presented in elegant Evian
glass bottles. The public will have the opportunity to sample
Evian and experience the artistic floral interpretations of spring
that bring the new advertising campaign to life in a glorious
presentation.

WHEN: Press Breakfast - RSVP Only
Friday, March 26th
8:30 A.M. Check-in, breakfast
8:50 A.M.-9:10 AM Lauren Bush to unveil Garden of Evian
Ad Campaign Preview, Photo Opps
9:10 - 9:45 A.M. Breakfast, viewing of Garden

Public Viewings
Friday, March 26th-Saturday, March 27th
11:00 A.M. - 6:00 P.M.

TV Crews, Photographers Welcome - Please RSVP

WHERE: THE GREAT ROOM
The Shops At Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Circle
Time Warner Center

WHY: "The Garden of Evian" presented at New York's newest landmark, the
Time Warner Center, will introduce Evian's new national
advertising campaign. One of the simplest ways to rejuvenate
ourselves is still by drinking pure natural water like Evian. This
simple yet powerful message will debut this April in a vivid new
advertising campaign featuring brilliant flowers blooming out of
bottles of Evian water. Additional renditions of "The Garden of
Evian" will be on display April 1 in Los Angeles at The Grove @
Farmers Market and in early May in Miami.

[Edward]

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/food/openings/9161/

A Rare Treat
Jean-Georges does meat and potatoes—so to speak.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten has reinvented those musty New York steakhouse must-haves for his just-opened, unabashedly rococo V Steakhouse, in Time Warner’s collection of star-launched eateries. Tradition’s burp-making onions and tomatoes are now an elegant tower of fried onion thins and heirloom tomatoes. Shrimp cocktail, usually ossified, is reborn as gently cooked shrimp on chopped cucumber in a stirring puddle of cocktail-sauce essence. House-smoked salmon is gorgeous in its makeover. Caramelized foie gras and portobellos on the iceberg “Vedge” seem a bit silly, and I’m not sure I forgive the whipped and violated Caesar or the do-it-yourself onion soup. But the steak is a steak, and all the meat flaunts aristocratic provenance. Grilled Dover sole, boned and manicured tableside, is a classic; the halibut, sublime. V’s new “fripps”—ovals of baked potato fried in tempura batter with lemon zest—are splendid for sharing, and the buttery mashed potatoes give new nuance to buttery. Deconstructed lemon meringue pie and the cruelly tweaked cherry pie are simply annoying: Insist on the thrillingly old-fashioned sixteen-layer chocolate cake. Entrées, $19 to $45, plus a $76 rib-eye for two. —Gael Greene
10 Columbus Circle, fourth floor
212-823-9500

[BigMac]

New York Post
June 7, 2004

It's A Gran Slam

By MARIANNE GARVEY

http://www.nypost.com/photos/news06062004007.jpg
FOOD FIGHT: Beatrice Dryer, with husband Murray, is battling Whole Foods Market, which banned her from its premises.

Beatrice and Murray Dryer are raising holy hell at the Whole Foods Market — because, incredibly, she's been banned for life from New York City's biggest gourmet food store.

Beatrice, 81, is Public Enemy No. 1 at the spectacular new supermarket in the Time Warner Center and could face instant arrest if she sets foot inside.

Store officials insist they have a good reason for declaring the elderly Manhattanite off-limits — claiming she snatched a piece of chocolate cake and some cheese without paying.

But the retired antiques dealer says she's been falsely accused and plans to fight the Big Apple's red-hot, mall-sized market tooth and nail.

"I think they're crazy, accusing me of stealing. I wouldn't put myself out on a limb for a piece of cheese," Beatrice told The Post.

There are two sides to every story and Dryer's version is that security guards pounced on her before she was able to pay for the food.

But store officials insist they intervened only after the elderly shopper passed by a register with the dessert in tow without paying for it.

Beatrice said the nasty incident occurred after she and her husband, Murray, 83, finished eating a prepared dinner they'd bought earlier at Whole Foods at a table set up for in-store diners just past the registers.

After she returned to the store to get dessert, Beatrice said she walked back over to Murray with her selections in tow to get some money from him to pay.

"I was carrying a piece of chocolate cake and a few slices of cheese — the next thing I knew I was surrounded by security guards," she said.

She said a guard from Elite Security — a private firm hired by Whole Foods — told her he'd been eyeing her trying to stuff cake and cheese under her coat.

"I wasn't even wearing a coat," Beatrice fumed. "Four guards came to me. They said, 'Let's go! Right this minute!' "

One of the guards retrieved her husband and they were marched down a long corridor into a back room where she was grilled for half an hour — then forced to sign a statement saying she'd never return to the store, she said.

The Dryers are so worked up over the March 29 incident, they've hired a lawyer to sue for $5,000 unless Whole Foods lifts the ban and issues an apology.

But John Marsh, Whole Foods store-team leader, said the Dryers are telling a tall tale — one that's a different story from what really happened.

"What she did is called 'willful concealment,' " Marsh insisted.

Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[krulltime]

Princeton Running Company Signs at TW Center

Princeton Running Company will be opening its first New York City store at the Shops at Columbus Circle. The Princeton, NJ-based company has committed to 7,000 square feet.

Jedd Nero and Robert Gibson of the CB Richard Ellis Retail Services Group, arranged the long-term lease on behalf of Princeton Running Company. Mitch Friedel of Related Retail Management negotiated on behalf of ownership, The Related Companies.

Princeton Running Company will occupy space on the second floor of the Shops at Columbus Circle, joining other retailers such as Sisley/Benetton, Eileen Fisher, Tourneau, Hugo Boss and Coach, among others.

Copyright 2003-2004 The Real Deal.

[Edward]

Second Calvin Klein Underwear Store Opens in New York City
At The Shops at Columbus Circle in the Prestigious New Time Warner Center

NEW YORK, July 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Calvin Klein Underwear, a division of Warnaco Inc. (Nasdaq: WRNC - News), announces the opening of the second U.S. store. The store, located in The Shops at Columbus Circle in New York City, opens on Saturday, July 3, 2004. This store follows the opening of the first Calvin Klein Underwear retail store in the U.S. on Prince Street in New York's SoHo.

Located on the ground level of the new Time Warner Center at 10 Columbus Circle, the 950 square foot store will stock both men's and women's Calvin Klein branded underwear, concentrating on fashion forward product. Additionally, the store will carry underwear products exclusive to the retail stores, as well as Calvin Klein fragrances.

The store interior follows the concept design for all Calvin Klein Underwear stores globally and is consistent with the brand's aesthetic principles. Modern design elements are simple and concise to keep the focus on the product, and clean lines and effective lighting make the store approachable and inviting.

The new Calvin Klein Underwear store is the latest location in a global network of freestanding stores. As previously reported, Warnaco expects to have over 60 Calvin Klein Underwear retail stores worldwide by year-end.

Joe Gromek, Warnaco's President and CEO, said, "The Calvin Klein Underwear retail model has been successful both overseas and, more recently, domestically. The response to the first U.S. store in SoHo has been very positive and we would anticipate similar performance from the new store in The Shops at Columbus Circle."

"The opening of the new Calvin Klein Underwear store represents an exciting addition to the Calvin Klein global retail portfolio," said Tom Murry, President & Chief Operating Officer of Calvin Klein, Inc. "Freestanding stores are an excellent platform to communicate brand image and The Shops at Columbus Circle is an ideal location to reach our uptown consumer."

Warnaco is the owner of the Calvin Klein trademarks for underwear and intimate apparel. The Calvin Klein Underwear retail stores located in Soho and in The Shops at Columbus Circle are owned and operated by Blue Vibes, a multinational organization with many retail interests.

The Warnaco Group, Inc., headquartered in New York, is a leading apparel company engaged in the business of designing, marketing and selling intimate apparel, menswear, jeanswear, swimwear, men's and women's sportswear and accessories under such owned and licensed brands as Warner's®, Olga®, Lejaby®, Body Nancy Ganz(TM), Speedo®, Anne Cole Collection®, Cole of California® and Catalina® as well as Chaps® sportswear and denim, JLO by Jennifer Lopez® lingerie, Nautica® swimwear, Michael Kors® swimwear and Calvin Klein® men's and women's underwear, men's accessories, men's, women's, junior women's and children's jeans and women's and juniors swimwear.

Calvin Klein, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation (NYSE: PVH - News) and one of the leading fashion design and marketing studios in the world. It designs and markets women's and men's designer collection apparel and a range of other products that are manufactured and marketed through an extensive network of licensing agreements worldwide. Brands/lifestyles include Calvin Klein Collection, ck Calvin Klein, Calvin Klein, Calvin Klein Jeans and Choice Calvin Klein. Product lines include apparel, accessories, shoes, underwear, sleepwear, hosiery, socks, swimwear, eyewear, watches, jewelry, coats, and fragrances, as well as products for the home.

Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation is one of the world's largest apparel companies. It owns and markets the Calvin Klein brand worldwide. It is the world's largest shirt company and markets a variety of goods under its own brands, Van Heusen, Calvin Klein, Izod, Bass and G.H. Bass & Co., and its licensed brands Geoffrey Beene, Arrow, Kenneth Cole New York, Kenneth Cole Reaction, BCBG Max Azria, BCBG Attitude and, beginning later in 2004, MICHAEL Michael Kors, Sean John, Sean John Collection and Chaps.

[Kris]

LINCOLN TO PARK IN TW CENTER LOBBY


By PAUL THARP
July 14, 2004

As it pulls out of its sponsorship of the U.S. Open, Lincoln hopes to get a bigger bang for its bucks by sponsoring the posh lobby of Time Warner Center.

Lincoln is installing its cars in the spacious atrium and lobby of the Time Warner building, one of the city's newest luxury destinations, which is expected to draw 16 million visitors annually.

Concierges in elegant costumes will invite visitors to climb inside the vehicles to try out the sound systems or to book a test drive nearby.

Blaring on 26 high-tech video screens spread around the glitzy lobby, pitches will remind visitors about Lincoln Mercury's products and involvement in promoting culture.

Lincoln decided to invest in a novel New York promotion in order to maintain a high profile here after it pulls out of the U.S. Open — which it has sponsored for five years — at the end of this summer's matches.

Lincoln signed a three-year pact with the building's operators, Related Cos., to control five strategic spots year-round in the retail enclave of luxury brands, starting Oct. 1.

Although Lincoln won't reveal the cost of becoming the building's official luxury car, it's said to be much cheaper than the automaker's multimillion-dollar sponsorship of the U.S. Open.

The cars will also be surrounded by trappings of upscale living.


Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[Edward]

The art in the lobby of The Shops at Columbus Circle (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm). 3 October 2004. Anybody remembers the name of the artist?

On the bottom of the picture is a part of the Lincoln installation you can read in the previous post. No cars yet though.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/images/shops_columbus_3oct04.jpg (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm)

[Edward]

http://www.nypost.com/realestate/comm/39600.htm
KUNZ TO SET NEW CAF� AT TW BLDG.

By STEVE CUOZZO

THE Time Warner Center galleria, a favorite put-down target of Manhattan elitists, grows more bustling by the month. Now comes word from Related Cos. honcho Kenneth Himmel that superchef Gray Kunz will soon open a 70-seat bar and cafe in the midst of the third-floor public space overlooking the great hall.

Kunz's Cafe Gray, of course, is alreading packing 'em in to the tune of nearly $40,000 a day. But an informal cafe is just what the building needs. Until now, the only eating options have been restaurants ranging from expensive to ultra-expensive.

"We have a lot more coming in," said Himmel, who conceived the Columbus Circle project's shopping and dining complex. He said Thomas Keller's long-awaited Boucheron Bakery will likely open in early May on the third floor and Charlie Trotter will start construction soon on his own third-floor restaurant.

Meanwhile, exactly what's going on at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's V Steakhouse remains something of a puzzle. As The Post reported last week, its two sets of partners have bickered over its performance.

Following months of buzz that V's days were numbered, all parties sounded eager to say business had picked up and things were back on track. But the upbeat comments left some unanswered questions.

V has two sets of partners: Related Cos. chiefs Stephen Ross and Himmel and Apollo Realty principal William Mack as individual investors; and Vongerichten and his financial partner Phil Suarez. The overall partnership operates V under a lease from Related Cos.

"We have very complicated arrangements," Himmel said in an understatement. "A complicated lease, a complicated joint venture, and a complicated management agreement."

Himmel and Ross made it sound as if Vongerichten and Suarez had agreed to make the menu more like a "traditional" steakhouse's, while Vongerichten, and Suarez seemed to say they had already made as many changes as they were going to make.

[NewYorkYankee]

What a wonderful place TWC has become. Do NY'ers frequent the mall and places to eat? Or is it mainly tourists? Ill have to def. check this place out when I move up!

[TonyO]

I haven't been to any of the spendy restaurants upstairs but I do know the Whole Foods food court in the basement is very popular with the local work crowd.

[billyblancoNYC]

What a wonderful place TWC has become. Do NY'ers frequent the mall and places to eat? Or is it mainly tourists? Ill have to def. check this place out when I move up!

I think there's a lot of NYers, especially in the restaurants and Whole Foods. These places do $1mil plus per month in business, and the Whole Foods revs must be insane.

[Edward]

... I do know the Whole Foods food court in the basement is very popular with the local work crowd.

Let me illustrate how popular. On Friday before the snowstorm I went to buy some tomatoes and other fruit. I ended up leaving my shopping cart and retreating. The line was zigzagging among the deli section like a snake - hundreds of people - I tried to find the end but failed.

So I went to their liquor section, got some wine and left. By the way - the liquor section is open on Saturdays and Sundays, unlike most of other liquor shops in the city.

[Schadenfrau]

Actually, most liquor stores I see are open on Sundays now. I think the blue laws were changed a few months ago. First, stores could only be open six days a week, the days being of the owner's choosing. Shortly after, they were allowed to be open all seven days.

I remember something about the state trying to sue Whole Foods because the entrance to their liquor store was accessible only through the main store and not through an outside door.

You're not the only one to abandon your cart at Whole Foods, Edward. I've done it a few times, myself.

[AmeriKenArtist]

Is it just me, or is 0 floor a kind of oxymoron?

[TLOZ Link5]

Is it just me, or is 0 floor a kind of oxymoron?

In Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, the 0 floor is the ground floor, what is referred to as the first floor in the United States. The next floor up would be called the first floor, and so on and so forth.

[Lemonsoda]

The art in the lobby of The Shops at Columbus Circle (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm). 3 October 2004. Anybody remembers the name of the artist?

That has to be a Botero. It's all in the wierdly proportioned body parts.

I like the place. It's a decent enough step in the right direction - New York should have competitive and indeed extraordinary shops of every stripe. If the city prospers, maybe we will see a makeover of the lackluster lower stories' facade in the next decade.

Oh, and the crowds at Whole Foods are indeed impressive. Very good! May the lines grow longer and finally merge with the one in front of the Times Square TKTS booth.

[AmeriKenArtist]

In Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, the 0 floor is the ground floor, what is referred to as the first floor in the United States. The next floor up would be called the first floor, and so on and so forth.
Yes, I understand..... I think it's quite comical, oxymoronic. A zero floor!