Wellness Dominated NYC Retail Leases

New Yorkers are ready to get healthy. Retailers are willing to bet on it.

One trend driving retail activity this past quarter compared to last was high-end wellness.

The two largest leases of the quarter, as compiled in a JLL report released Thursday, were Chelsea Piers’ 76,000-square-foot deal by the South Street Seaport, at 250 Water Street, and Life Time’s 71,000-square-foot lease in North Williamsburg. Both are boutique gyms.

Following close behind was Atria Health, a membership-based medical group that focuses on “optimizing your lifestyle” and “healthy longevity.” Its services cost $60,000 per year, according to The New York Times. The company leased 52,000 square feet in Chelsea.

A different retail report from the Real Estate Board of New York calls out another lease in the wellness space: Hydrogen Fitness will be occupying 17,000 square feet in Murray Hill for its first New York location.

The gym boom appears to have started last year. In 2025, four of the top ten retail leases of the year were luxury gyms, with Equinox joining competitors Life Time and Chelsea Piers.

If that weren’t enough sweating, a spate of sauna concepts also opened, with Lore, Othership, and Saint all steaming up the windows in Manhattan.

“It illustrates how formative Covid was in terms of awareness of self-care and mental well-being,” Keith DeCoster, vice president of research at REBNY, told me last year about the wellness boom.

That trend may have helped to push vacancies in Manhattan’s retail corridors to a record low. Only about 12 percent of space in Manhattan’s prime submarkets was vacant, according to JLL, the lowest since the brokerage began putting out the report at the end of 2019.

Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side and Soho had the lowest availability rates, at 8 percent.

What we’re thinking about: I’ve heard a few folks in the real estate industry tell me they’re proud participants in the wellness boom: counting macros, skipping drinks and making deals over games of padel. Have you changed your habits or your business? Don’t be shy. Tell me about it at lilah.burke@therealdeal.com.

A thing we’ve learned: One of the three struggling small businesses suing the Department of Housing and Urban Development to stop it from relocating its Washington, D.C. headquarters is named SpiceX, a play on the space exploration company that recently IPO’d and made its owner, Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire.

— Spencer Davis

Elsewhere…

— Manhattan residential sales topped $8.2 billion in the second quarter of this year — a 19.4 percent increase from last year — according to a report from real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman reported by Crain’s. The data continues to prove that New Yorkers are not fleeing the city.

— Developer Silverstein Properties broke ground Thursday morning on construction of the final commercial office building at the World Trade Center complex, CBS News reported. The building, located at 2 World Trade Center, will house American Express headquarters, span nearly two million square feet across 55 floors and accommodate up to 10,000 workers once it is complete in 2031.

— MetroLoft, the developer behind the buckling former Pfizer headquarters, is facing a $350 million lawsuit over construction defects at the star-studded Tribeca building at 443 Greenwich St., the New York Post reported. The building, which has been home to celebrities including Hollywood A-list couple Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal, allegedly had leaky roofs and a flooding courtyard. The building’s condo board sued MetroLoft in 2022, which filed to dismiss the case.

— Spencer Davis

Closing time

Residential: The most expensive residential sale recorded Thursday was $21 million for an 8,159-square-foot townhouse at 146 Waverly Place in the West Village. The Hudson Advisory Team at Compass had the listing. The property last sold for $17.4 million in July 2019.

Commercial: The most expensive commercial transaction was $57 million for a portfolio of six apartment properties with a combined 119 residential units. The properties include 1678, 1690, 1703, 1715, 1719 and 1751 Union Street in Crown Heights.

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $27 million for a 5,000-square-foot sponsor-sale condominium at The Henry, 211 West 84th Street on the Upper West Side. Alexa Lambert, Alison Black and Shelton Smith at Compass have the listing.

Breaking Ground: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 3,070,034-square-foot hotel and casino at Ferry Point in the Bronx. The project’s address is 538 Hutchinson River Parkway in Schuylerville. Joseph Lauro with Gensler filed the permit on behalf of Bally’s Corporation.

— Matthew Elo