By: Serach Nissim
Petzel Gallery, the contemporary art collection and exhibition, is relocating from its long-time home and expanding.
As reported by the NY Post, the gallery is leaving its address at 456 W. 18th St., and moving to 520-530 W. 25th St. in Chelsea. The new space, redeveloped by the Feil Organization, will roughly double the gallery’s footprint. It boasts 11,000 square feet of ground-floor gallery space and 7,000 square feet of offices upstairs at No. 520.
Petzel has been a trailblazer in the contemporary art scene since it was founded in 1994, starting off on Wooster Street in Soho. Featured artists include Ross Bleckner, Simon Denny, Sarah Morris and Stephen Prina, just to name a few. The gallery has moved several times and also opened a satellite townhouse on East 67th Street uptown, which will stay open.
Gallery founder Friedrich Petzel said, “I’ve been checking out the buzz about up-and-coming gallery neighborhoods. Ultimately, after talking with my artists, I decided to make a long-term commitment to Chelsea and the brilliant community there.”
Feil is currently also marketing nearby six-story building number 530, which will hold 70,000 square feet of class-A offices. The building space, including the gallery, was part of a redevelopment of the 100-year-old building by the Feil Organization and Rigby Asset Management. Rigby founder Paul Armstrong said he conceived the new design. He said the asking rents on the gallery space was “in the low triple digits. A ground-floor transaction of this size is a very encouraging sign for the Manhattan market.” Randall Briskin, VP of leasing at Feil added, “Our aim was to take this exceptional building and bring it into the 21st century without compromising its unique character.”
Real estate brokerage giant JLL‘s tristate CEO and President, Peter Riguardi, said he’s sensed several “clear, post-COVID messages” in the sluggish Manhattan office-leasing market. While office vacancies remain high, CBRE cited a 20 percent increase in leasing activity in the second quarter of 2021, compared to the first quarter.
The 3.47 million square feet of office space leased in the second quarter was still 44 percent lower than the five-year quarterly average. CBRE’s senior director of research and analysis, Nicole LaRusso, expressed optimism saying, “We see occupier demand growing.” Overall availability is up to 17.8 percent, the highest level since 1990. The first step to filling up vacancies will be for employees to return back to their offices after working remotely since March 2020. “The American-based banks are going to lead the way. Hopefully other tenants will soon follow,” Riguardi predicted.
