Double the Fun: "Department Store" and Mid City Gym Rising in Hells Kitchen

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Judging from the alarmingly generic signage, it looks like residents of Hells Kitchen won't have to take the ferry over to Jersey for tacky mahogany bedroom sets much longer. The property at 345 West 42nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues is getting set for the late spring openings of both a home department store (currently unnamed) and another outpost of the bare-bones Mid City Gym chain (despite the existence of a Mid City Gym only several blocks north at 244 West 49th Street).

Real Estate Weekly profiled the space as having a "100-linear-foot, all-glass storefront and lofty 20-foot ceilings,...7,600 square feet of ground floor space; 6,200 square feet of second level space; and an 8,400-square-foot selling basement." It all seems so anti-climactic for this address, convenient to the Port Authority and "foot traffic from the 20 million tourists that visit and shop in the Times Square District annually." Let's hope that the home store skews more Linens 'n Things than Amish Oak Gallery.
· 2003 Retail Brokers' Preview [Real Estate Weekly]
· Mid City Gym W. 42nd Street Info [Mid City Gym]