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Toya Thomas is the longtime manager of Clare V. on Elizabeth Street in Nolita, a pleasant, tree-lined retail corridor long known for its collection of small, tightly curated boutiques. The strip attracts a lot of locals \u2014 and tourists \u2014 who are looking for what she calls \u201cniche brands and products\u201d and, more than anything, to find something outside the mainstream shopping experience. Except, she\u2019s been noticing, maybe it\u2019s no longer so unique?<\/p>\n
On a recent trip to Williamsburg to visit her boyfriend\u2019s Kent Street barbershop, she noticed the growing collection of stores mirroring the scene on Elizabeth Street. \u201cIt\u2019s literally a carbon copy of what\u2019s in Nolita,\u201d she said. \u201cThe exact same stores!\u201d Her friend, the manager of S\u00e9zane just down the block<\/a>, noticed it as well. Wherever there\u2019s a Clare V., there\u2019s likely to be a S\u00e9zane nearby, they noted, along with a Tacombi.<\/p>\n Not to mention an Everlane, an Aesop, a Buck Mason, a Warby Parker, a Faherty \u2026 call it the takeover of the mini-chains. Over the past decade, a new generation of retail brands \u2014 including shops like Clare V. that got their start online \u2014 have branched out from their Elizabeth Street origins and multiplied across the city. Of course, you won\u2019t find them on mall-brand shopping corridors like Manhattan\u2019s 34th Street or Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Instead, these chains have congregated in stylish shopping strips like Bleecker Street in the West Village and Cobble Hill\u2019s Bergen Street\u00a0\u2014 corridors that have a distinctly \u201cneighborhood\u201d feel and attract younger shoppers with plenty of cash and a taste for (mildly) adventurous fashion. There are now little Nolitas everywhere.<\/p>\n \n Buck Mason, Le Labo, and Malin + Goetz on Elizabeth Street in Nolita. Alexandra Yanoff, a commercial real-estate broker with Brand Urban<\/a>, a retail brokerage, refers to these mini-chains as the \u201ccool kid\u201d brands. They include DTC brands like Everlane and Brooklinen, local designers opening multiple shops around town, and indie boutiques based in cities like L.A. and Paris looking to establish a presence in Brooklyn or Manhattan. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to be perceived as a chain,\u201d she said, \u201ceven if maybe they are.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a positive trend for the city, says Jonathan Bowles, executive director at the Center for an Urban Future<\/a>, who has been tracking the city\u2019s chains for 18 years with the center\u2019s annual State of the Chains<\/a> report. \u201cI think New Yorkers are after interesting retail and for a while, it seemed the phrase national chain meant something boring and generic \u2014 the same retail mix they have in Cleveland,\u201d says Bowles. \u201cBut the chains we\u2019re seeing now are retailers with three or five stores \u2014 they still seem unique. It\u2019s a more interesting mix than what we had five years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n It also coincides with a noticeable exodus of the megachains. In recent years, some of the most prominent national brands, such as T-Mobile, Starbucks, and GNC, shed dozens if not hundreds of locations within the city, while chains including Rite Aid and Forever 21 exited the market completely, he notes. But the mini-chains are making up for the closings. \u201cThere\u2019s still significant growth happening in the retail market, and it\u2019s the newer chains driving the growth,\u201d he says. The city now has 19 Warby Parkers, for example, along with 19 Aesops and seven Buck Masons.<\/p>\n And these chains are catering to a different crowd than the established brands. Many got their start online and know how to flourish in an Instagram world. The shops themselves are often designed to look great in a selfie.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no accident that they\u2019re clustering in very specific parts of the city. Of course, it\u2019s related to where their target customer resides \u2014 and where the storefront rents make sense. But take a look at any of the little Nolitas popping up in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and you\u2019ll invariably find a player who had a very specific plan.<\/p>\n Bombas, the ubiquitous online sock seller, launched in 2013, but it wasn\u2019t until this year that it opened its first brick-and-mortar store on Bleecker Street in the West Village \u2014 the first of three, including stores in Boca Raton and Austin. Why Bleecker Street? Mainly because it partnered with Leap<\/a>, an NYC-based \u201cretail platform\u201d that provides everything but the socks. Leap, which has raised more than $82 million in VC funding, leased the Bombas storefront and designed the cheery interior. Everyone working at Bombas is a Leap employee, hired and trained by Leap. Leap provided the counters, shelves, furniture, and POS system. Even the dance-pop playlist humming over the sound system on a recent afternoon was curated by Leap.<\/p>\n And Bombas isn\u2019t the only Bleecker Street retailer that is \u201cPowered by Leap,\u201d as the unobtrusive sticker on the front window signals. In exchange for a monthly operating fee and a cut of the sales, Leap handles operations for ten other stores on the three blocks of Bleecker between West 11th and Christopher Streets, including Leset, Alohas (shoes), Bond-Eye (swimwear), Frankies Bikinis, and Set Active (athleisure clothes). The street functions much like a mall, only with the charm and cache that comes from being situated on a leafy West Village street.<\/p>\n Photo: Google Maps\n <\/p>\n While a shopper wandering down the block might experience it as an eclectic mix of small brands, the boundaries between stores are, in fact, quite porous. Some Leap employees bounce between different brands up and down the street. Bombas manager Elizabeth Wasserman, for example, started as a part-time sales associate with Good Life, a menswear shop, and went on to work at Cuts, Set Active, and several other Leap-powered clothing brands before taking her current role. \u201cI\u2019ve sold everything from yoga to men\u2019s pants to socks,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n If the stores seem to share a similar vibe, it\u2019s by design. Leap, which began its occupation of Bleecker Street in 2019, has a specific demographic in mind. \u201cI call it the West Village shopper<\/a>,\u201d said Jon Levy, Leap\u2019s EVP of retail success, on a recent tour of the corridor. It\u2019s a young, stylish, \u201cpremium customer,\u201d as he puts it, and for the most part a woman. The West Village girl will happily pay more for contemporary fashion than what she\u2019d spend at the mall but isn\u2019t quite ready for the luxury price tags of Soho and Madison Avenue.<\/p>\n And by pooling the sales data from all 11 Bleecker storefronts, Leap can help the brands decide what to sell. \u201cWe can actually say, \u2018We know the Bleecker shopper buys a lot of extra smalls, they buy a lot of black, they buy a lot of athleisure,\u2019\u201d says Levy. The data also suggests new brands that would complement the existing mix. When Leap noticed Frankies Bikinis was doing well on Bleecker, it lured in another upscale swimwear brand, Australia\u2019s Bond-Eye, installing it one door down from Frankies and creating what may be the start of a little swimwear district.<\/p>\n Leap, which now controls 28 storefronts in four clusters around the city (and 105 nationwide in cities like Chicago and L.A.), focused first on Bleecker Street because the West Village location had potential, even though vacancies were high. It meant the rents were cheap, and the small storefronts \u2014 typically under 1,000 square feet with limited storage space \u2014 were perfect for fledgling brands with limited production runs.<\/p>\n Levy says Leap had a big hand in revitalizing this stretch of Bleecker Street, which is now buzzing with stores, caf\u00e9s and restaurants. \u201cYou bring a great brand, who brings a great shopper, and then the other brands show up,\u201d says Levy. Here, the Leset and Diptyque shopper can explore newcomers like Kinn, the L.A.-based jewelry brand that opened its first New York shop this year, and Loeffler Randall, which first set up shop in Soho and has just four stores total.<\/p>\n And while Leap controls only a third of the storefronts on the strip, its presence looms large. It throws what may be the world\u2019s only VC-backed block party, a semi-annual affair with DJs, live music, and face painting that shuts down the street. For anyone trying to get on the strip now, it\u2019s nearly impossible to snag a storefront on Bleecker if you don\u2019t go through Leap, complained at least one commercial broker.<\/p>\n It\u2019s showing up in the rents too. Thanks to increased demand, lease rates on Bleecker Street have doubled since 2023, to $440 a square foot, according to the Real Estate Board of New York<\/a>, while rates for storefronts on mall strips like 34th Street and 125th fell during that same period, to $383 and $135, respectively.<\/p>\n Could Leap become a victim of its own success? It snapped up a large number of ten-year leases on Bleecker Street during the pandemic. When these leases inevitably renew at higher rates in a few years, the retail economics may not math out and Leap tenants looking to expand may have to expand elsewhere. Some, as a matter of fact, already are \u2014 and in the most unlikely neighborhood.<\/p>\n Until recently, it would have sounded bonkers to refer to the Upper East Side as the new Nolita or West Village. And it\u2019s still a bit of a stretch. But store-wise, it\u2019s definitely headed that way, said Brand Urban\u2019s Alexandra Yanoff on a recent tour of the area. In the past two years, a growing number of downtown residents in their mid-to-late 30s who have gotten tired of living in fourth-floor walk-ups and want more space to raise a family have \u201cdiscovered\u201d the Upper East Side between Lexington Avenue and York. And the mini-chains that cater to them \u2014 Sant Ambroeus, Solidcore, Vuori \u2014 are following them uptown, dotting stretches of Second and Third Avenue between 72nd and 86th Street.<\/p>\n Yanoff is one of the commercial brokers shepherding the move. She\u2019s suited to the job, she notes, because she epitomizes the new face of the Upper East Side. Fashionable, fit, and 34 years old, she lived alone in a series of one-bedroom apartments on the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, and Flatiron until last year, when she and her partner moved to a two-bedroom on East 83rd Street with an elevator and a doorman.<\/p>\n Photo: Google Maps\n <\/p>\n \n Fragrance brand D.S. & Durga got its start on Mulberry Street in Nolita. It opened on the Upper East Side two years ago. \u201cAnd now I\u2019m like, \u2018I want my good restaurants<\/a>, my good shopping, the good services,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cEverybody wants to see the cool places in their own neighborhood, me included. And so all these operators that have existing locations downtown see the need to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n Yanoff often works with brands that have until now been online only, or have been operating a single location in another city such as L.A. or Paris, that are looking to open their first outpost in New York City. They typically want to debut downtown, for the cool factor. \u201cYou want to be perceived as a cooler, edgier brand and then become a little bit more mainstream,\u201d she said. But they\u2019re increasingly open to the Upper East Side for a second or third location. \u201cIn the past, if you were a cool-kid brand positioning yourself in Noho or Nolita, the Upper East Side would never have been your second unit,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe the West Village. You would have stayed in your downtown neighborhood. But now everyone sees the power of the density here.\u201d That\u2019s how, for example, she got downtown shop Susan Alexandra to open its second store in the area along with S\u00e9zane.<\/p>\n This would sound a bit promotional if it weren\u2019t for the evidence. Pura Vida, the Florida clean-food chain with its $20 tuna wraps, has a new outpost here as does Cafe Maud (\u201calways slammed!\u201d), Reformation, Framebridge, and, of course, Warby Parker. It\u2019s a bit of a risk to the carefully crafted brand image \u2014 the mini-chains want to maintain their downtown, indie cred, and the Upper East Side is as stodgy as Manhattan gets. \u201cBut all it takes is one really notable tenant performing for the rest to be talking and then looking there,\u201d says Yanoff.<\/p>\n Another factor: The fledging chains are increasingly priced out of desirable downtown locations. There are bidding wars on every Elizabeth Street storefront with rents ranging from $175 to $250 per square foot, Yanoff says. According to REBNY, the asking rent on a 1,000-square-foot Soho storefront is averaging about $726,000 a year (or about $750 a square foot). The same size shop on Third Avenue, meanwhile, would run about $220,000.<\/p>\n Stopping into Pura Vida, Yanoff pointed out the eclectic mix of diners, many of them young (not just ladies who lunch), and she noted that the Miami-based chain, which opened its first NYC locations in Nomad, Williamsburg, and Noho, still didn\u2019t feel like a fast-growing national brand with dozens of locations in California, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. With its minimalist, airy design and creatine smoothies, it\u2019s more like a beachy French caf\u00e9 set in a spa.<\/p>\n All of this is definitely changing the feel of the neighborhood. With the condo-construction boom<\/a> east of Lexington and the chains moving uptown to cater to those residents, the area\u2019s characteristic mom-and-pop stores are forced to move to the side streets or perhaps close altogether. \u201cI\u2019d say the unfortunate part is that now when you\u2019re walking the streets, you\u2019re not discovering as many of the one-off, unique specialty stores you might have encountered in the past,\u201d says Yanoff.<\/p>\n But the game of musical chairs hardly ends there. Across the river in Williamsburg \u2014 once Brooklyn\u2019s answer to Manhattan\u2019s downtown \u2014 the new residents moving into the waterfront condos are largely young professionals making piles of money in finance and tech. \u201cIt\u2019s almost the new Murray Hill,\u201d says Yanoff. And at the heart of the neighborhood, North 6th Street, the cool-kid retail mix is giving way to what may be the inevitable fate for all the city\u2019s little Nolitas: a high-end luxury corridor that includes Herm\u00e8s, Chanel, and, yes, even mall brands like Abercrombie & Fitch.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been less than a decade since the thrift stores, dive bars, and live-music venues on North 6th Street vanished to make room for a Nolita-like mix of indie boutiques and DTC mini-chains like Buck Mason, Everlane, and Warby Parker. That was followed by an influx of more established names like Lululemon and North Face. But the churn didn\u2019t stop there. \u201cIn contrast to the eclectic retail mix on corridors like Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint or nearby Grand Street, North 6th is Brooklyn\u2019s most curated retail,\u201d noted REBNY in its latest market update.<\/p>\n And who\u2019s doing the curating? The big player behind the shopping on North 6th is a name familiar to everyone in the real-estate biz \u2014 Empire State Realty Trust,<\/a> a $985 million publicly traded company with a commercial space portfolio of 8.6 million square feet including, yes, the Empire State Building.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw a corridor with a unique combination,\u201d says ESRT SVP Fred Posniak, citing the area\u2019s growing base of affluent, \u201cdiscovery oriented\u201d residents with foot traffic surpassing Manhattan\u2019s top shopping strips and the absence of an institutional landlord with a vision. \u201cThose are rare conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Buck Mason, D.S. & Durga, and Warby Parker on North 6th in Williamsburg. \n Faherty in Williamsburg. Beginning in 2023, ESRT spent $300 million snapping up 124,000 square feet of retail space along North 6th. It now owns 19 storefronts in the area occupied by a mix of DTC brands (Byredo, Warby Parker, Glossier), international giants (Nike, the Google Store), and luxury brands. The company says it invested in the area because it believed the trend would continue thanks in part to its own efforts. \u201cThe third chapter, now well underway, is the arrival of global luxury,\u201d says Posniak.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3b37bd7b2227fff6d414dfbaf6185912d7-elizabeth-street.rhorizontal.w700.png\")
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