Discount retailer TJ Maxx is opening a new 40,000-square-foot store in Herald Towers, its first new store here in a decade.
Photo: Courtesy of JEMB Realty

TJ Maxx has signed a 40,000-square-foot lease for a new store in Herald Square — the discount retailer’s first new store in New York City in more than a decade. It’s good news for bargain hunters who love the random scores and marked-down designer castoffs of a TJ Maxx haul — and a positive sign for the sluggish local retail scene, which has seen a lot of turnover and vacancy since the pandemic, with the departure of Uniqlo, Forever 21, and Kay Jewelers, among other brands. The lease is also a good omen for the retail scene in general; it was the largest lease for a new store in New York signed this year or the last, according to the New York Post.

The new store, in Herald Towers, a historic hotel turned apartment building on 34th Street and Sixth Avenue owned by JEMB Realty, will take over what some may remember as the Gap store on the corner. Since the clothing brand left in 2020, the space has been largely vacant, save for some pop-ups. But leasing in the building seems to be turning around; TJ Maxx will join several other new stores opening there, including an Old Navy, scheduled to open later this year. (Old Navy closed its four-story flagship a few storefronts down at 150 West 34th Street, where it had been since before 2000; the Irish discount clothing store Primark is now slated to open in that space this spring.)

For decades, Herald Square was one of the city’s busiest shopping districts, known for the dense crowds making their way to the Macy’s flagship and other mid-tier, mass-market retailers in the area. But after the pandemic, foot traffic dropped significantly. It had the highest availability rate of the city’s retail corridors at 33.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Cushman Wakefield, the same as a year before (this number includes both vacancies and soon-to-be-vacant spaces seeking new tenants). That’s nearly double the 17.3 percent rate (also high) in the runner-up corridor in the Meatpacking District. Retail rents in Herald Square, meanwhile, were down 4.4 percent year over year. As Crain’s reported this fall, the reasons for Herald Square’s retail slump are not entirely clear but are likely tied to some combination of a Trump-related tourism decline, the lingering effects of the pandemic, and the shift to online shopping, especially for mid-market retail. (Luxury brands, on the other hand, have been gobbling up real estate, especially in the Plaza District.) Late last year, H&M announced that it was closing 200 stores globally, including two in Manhattan (on East 86th Street and Church Street in the Financial District). Victoria’s Secret also closed dozens of U.S. stores last year. Some landlords blame the 2023 opening of Grand Central Madison, the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side stop, for taking away foot traffic from Herald Square, although that seems a little far-fetched.

New York’s overall retail scene has largely rebounded since the pandemic, with Soho and the Upper East Side doing particularly well. However, most of the large new retail leases citywide have been signed by health and fitness clubs, medical clinics, fast-food retailers, and educational facilities, according to the Post, making TJ Maxx’s new lease something of an outlier.

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