When Albert Laboz visited Fulton Avenue along with his mom within the Sixties, Downtown Brooklyn was nonetheless a retail mecca, drawing buyers from throughout the borough. The well-known division retailer Abraham & Straus anchored the hall, although its conventional middle-class clientele was already starting to decamp to the suburbs.
At this time, the growing old midrises alongside Fulton are dwelling to sneaker retailers, {discount} retailers, cellphone shops and fast-food joints, many tucked behind dirty facades.
However Laboz’s recollections of the outdated Fulton Avenue aren’t all nostalgic.
“I hated going there,” mentioned Laboz, who based United American Land along with his brothers and is now one in every of New York’s largest retail landlords. “Who needs to buy groceries with their mom?”
A&S later grew to become Macy’s, which remained a retail anchor on Fulton Avenue for many years. However the retailer shuttered final 12 months, leaving a hulking division store-shaped gap on the heart of the hall. Laboz, a longtime believer in Fulton Avenue’s revival, sees that gap as a gap.
With the Chehebar household’s Jackson Group, he’s turning the previous Macy’s into BKX, a 440,000-square-foot retail and leisure complicated designed by the agency behind the inside of the Las Vegas Sphere, with eating places, wellness ideas and experiential points of interest.
The hope is that BKX can flip Downtown Brooklyn’s built-in benefits into an precise retail vacation spot. The neighborhood sits atop one of many metropolis’s busiest transit hubs and inside strolling distance of a few of Brooklyn’s wealthiest brownstone neighborhoods. Luxurious house towers have remodeled the skyline, delivering tens of hundreds of recent residents. The individuals have arrived. The retail hasn’t caught up.
“There’s a lot growth taking place and retail has had some vivid spots, however it additionally hasn’t actually all come collectively, and Macy’s is on the coronary heart of all of it,” mentioned Dan Marks of Brooklyn business brokerage TerraCRG. “I believe the Fulton Mall has all the time been this thriller — like, why can’t the Fulton Mall be the prime retail driver that it needs to be?”
For Laboz, BKX is a take a look at of whether or not Fulton Avenue can lastly reclaim its title because the borough’s retail and leisure hub, Brooklyn’s reply to Occasions Sq..
“We really feel an amazing accountability as a result of all eyes are on us,” Laboz mentioned. “I believe no matter we’re gonna do will set the tone for the entire Downtown Brooklyn and Fulton Avenue.”
Then and now
A&S, at 422 Fulton Avenue, anchored the hall by means of the post-World Warfare II growth. However by the Sixties, malls had been struggling to compete with lower-priced retailers, and Brooklynites had been shifting to the suburbs. Fulton Avenue slowly advanced right into a chaotic hall of {discount} retailers.
However A&S held on. Its mother or father firm Federated Division Shops purchased Macy’s in 1995 and rebranded the Fulton Avenue retailer with the brand new title. In 2015, Tishman Speyer bought the highest 5 flooring of the constructing for $270 million and erected 10 flooring of workplaces on high of the unique division retailer.
“I hated going there. Who needs to buy groceries with their mom?”
Macy’s continued to occupy the primary 4 flooring till final 12 months, when it shuttered the placement as a part of a broader restructuring, leaving the decrease portion of the cast-iron constructing vacant for the primary time since its 1930 grand opening. Simply earlier than the ultimate bell, Isaac Chera of Crown Acquisitions swooped in to purchase the property from Macy’s for $23 million, then flipped it to the Labozes and Chehebars. (The New York Put up reported they paid $36 million, however Laboz declined to substantiate the quantity.)
The deliberate BKX may have a roughly 90-foot-high central atrium, with LED screens and an escalator connecting the flooring. There might be eight to 10 tenants, and the possible lineup contains a big wellness and health idea, eating places, a market, toy manufacturers and an leisure idea with bowling, an arcade and meals and beverage. The ambition is someplace between a shopping mall and an indoor amusement park.
“We wish to actually create one thing particular, a way of place the place individuals may come and have Instagram moments,” mentioned Laboz. “And the tenants that we’re chatting with are shopping for into it.”
The constructing’s scale is among the causes Laboz and his companions assume they will discover the excellence smaller landlords alongside Fulton can’t. Its 60,000- to 70,000-square-foot floorplates present sufficient contiguous house to enchantment to main manufacturers.
Laboz compares the idea to American Dream, the sprawling leisure complicated in New Jersey. He and his companions walked by means of the Ghermezians’ 3-million-square-foot megamall as a part of the planning course of and got here away with an concept to create one thing related, solely smaller and extra Brooklyn.
“Individuals have a damaging connotation of malls and suburban malls and we’re gonna have our personal spin to it,” Laboz mentioned. “However the place do families go in Brooklyn when it’s a foul afternoon and it’s raining? There isn’t any place.”
Laboz has additionally spent $107 million to amass an 18-lot assemblage over the past three many years on the block bounded by Jay, Fulton, Lawrence and Willoughby streets, which he mentioned will finally be “an ideal residential growth” and whose future inhabitants would possibly at some point frequent BKX.
The Metropolis Level experiment
The 1.8-million-square-foot mixed-use growth Metropolis Level has emerged as one take a look at case for the neighborhood’s retail market. The buying complicated opened in 2016 and backs as much as Fulton Avenue, with anchor tenant Primark opening straight onto Albee Sq..
The Dealer Joe’s, Goal and Alamo Drafthouse at Metropolis Level have grow to be main attracts for close by residents, and the DeKalb Market Corridor has established itself as an off-the-cuff eating vacation spot that generates greater than $30 million a 12 months in income.
Paul Travis, founder and president of Washington Sq. Companions, a companion in Metropolis Level alongside Acadia Realty Belief, was concerned within the venture from its earliest days. The unique concept was to create a vacation spot for the individuals dwelling in Brooklyn’s brownstone neighborhoods, who had traditionally handled Downtown Brooklyn as a spot they handed by means of on the way in which to Manhattan.
The subsequent step was to influence retailers.
“It was insanely laborious,” Travis mentioned. “You could have a giant model and Downtown Brooklyn is terra incognita for them.”
One of many first to signal on was Alamo Drafthouse, which Travis helped carry to Brooklyn at a time when film theaters had been closing. Goal and Dealer Joe’s inked massive leases at about the identical time. The consequence was a spot to do errands, but additionally to assemble.
Then one thing occurred that the builders hadn’t anticipated. The 2004 rezoning of the neighborhood set off a wave of high-density growth that has since introduced greater than 28,000 new housing items, in line with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The neighborhood is dwelling to a few of Brooklyn’s largest redevelopment initiatives, together with Silverstein Properties’ Brooklyn Tower and The Brook, a 52-story luxurious residential constructing constructed by Witkoff Group and Apollo International Administration at 567 Fulton Avenue.
Metropolis Level’s gross sales have elevated by a median of about 10 p.c a 12 months, Travis mentioned, and Saturday mornings are “stroller heaven.” Workplace staff, a significant lunchtime constituency earlier than the pandemic, are slowly returning.
Metropolis Level has given landlords cause to imagine Downtown Brooklyn can transfer past its discount-store popularity. Lululemon and Sephora have each not too long ago opened, although the neighborhood should be just a few steps away from the Chanel Magnificence that arrived in Williamsburg in 2023.
“I don’t see Chanel in Downtown Brooklyn anytime quickly, however I believe these retailers who can hit extra of a middle- to higher middle-market, you’ll find yourself seeing,” Travis mentioned. “We’ve got a few of these already and I actually assume there might be many, many extra of them.”
Signs of change
The retail market is already starting to shift. Final 12 months, the wildly well-liked Taiwanese restaurant chain Din Tai Fung leased 20,000 sq. toes at The Brook, a significant win for the neighborhood. Muji not too long ago signed a ten,000-square-foot lease at Alloy Improvement’s 100 Flatbush Avenue, a part of a five-building complicated on the nook of Fulton Avenue. And Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Kitchen is opening its fourth New York Metropolis location at 383 Bridge Avenue, simply off Fulton, an indication that even the trendiest of trendsetters are beginning to see one thing in Downtown Brooklyn.
However the economics have but to meet up with the hype. Asking rents for older storefronts are usually beneath $200 per sq. foot, in line with the Actual Property Board of New York, whereas some newer developments are searching for $300 to $400. That’s an formidable ask for a neighborhood that has but to completely flip the nook.
Fulton Mall foot site visitors was up 4 p.c 12 months over 12 months in 2025, in line with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, though the neighborhood’s retail emptiness charge hit 21 p.c, placing it among the many emptiest business corridors within the metropolis. There are different optimistic indicators: 151 storefronts opened between 2023 and 2025, whereas 88 closed, for a web achieve of 63.
“The Fulton Mall has all the time been this thriller — like, why can’t the Fulton Mall be the prime retail driver that it needs to be?”
“My view on Fulton Avenue basically is that it’s not an if, it’s a when,” mentioned dealer Chris DeCrosta of GoodSpace. He footage extra mass-market shops that cater to Brooklyn varieties. “If you happen to take a look at all of the buying streets in Brooklyn, there’s a complete world between Goal and Chanel Magnificence,” he mentioned.
Buyers, too, could also be beginning to place bets on that center floor. Properties alongside Fulton Avenue are starting to commerce arms. David Tabak’s Borough Builders simply snapped up a 33,000-square-foot mixed-use growth web site proper throughout from BKX for $83.5 million, and is planning a four-building residential venture with ground-floor retail house.
Bloomingdale Properties purchased 446 Fulton Avenue for $17 million in July, whereas Midwood Funding and Improvement paid $9.5 million for 423 Fulton Avenue in August. Each had been owned by longtime landlord Ralph Braha.
The result’s a hall that’s beginning to look higher on paper however remains to be struggling on the bottom.
That makes BKX unusually consequential. The venture is anticipated to start delivering house to tenants within the second quarter of 2027, with a gap focused for the primary quarter of 2028.
JLL’s Joshua Strauss, the dealer for BKX, mentioned the venture has been in the marketplace for six months and is in superior talks with two main points of interest, together with ideas from a number one film studio and a toy firm. He declined to debate asking rents.
“We’ve got this distinctive alternative to create an ecosystem, an actual vacation spot, all beneath one roof,” Strauss mentioned. “The hope with BKX, which is remodeling this Macy’s field, is that will probably be the shot within the arm for Fulton Avenue that all of us imagine will probably be.”
