About ten years in the past, it appeared like the whole floor ground of Manhattan was on its approach to turning into a financial institution. Or possibly a drugstore.
Now, spurred by adjustments within the economic system and their companies, chain banks and pharmacies are closing areas and downsizing their New York footprints. Landlords, going through massive areas they’ll’t fill, are chopping these storefronts up.
“You’re knocking a ten,000-foot Duane Reade into three or 4 areas,” mentioned Steven Soutendijk, vice chair and a retail dealer at Cushman & Wakefield. “And also you’re doing a Clean Road and a Naya and Sweetgreen and 1,000,000 various things.”
Take for instance a former Ceremony Help on West 97th Road and Columbus Avenue. The house is being damaged up and the food-hall chain Marvel has taken the primary bay, Soutendijk famous. On Eight Avenue and West forty second Road, a former Duane Reade is now a McDonald’s and a sushi restaurant.
Each chain banks and pharmacies fought for New York nook house from 2004 to round 2014, Soutendijk mentioned. The retailers have been extremely worthwhile, aggressive tenants, and had the drive to safe giant areas in high-traffic areas.
For banks, the directive was to get in entrance of individuals to gather their paychecks and deposits, mentioned Michael Miller, a retail dealer at TSCG.
“Nobody might pay greater than a financial institution. And naturally their credit score’s phenomenal,” mentioned Michael Miller, a retail dealer at TSCG. “They have been most likely the very best and finest lease payers in our whole trade.”
For shops like CVS and Walgreens, cash is comprised of the pharmacy within the again. However the odds and ends within the entrance — cleansing merchandise, greeting playing cards, vitality drinks — convey individuals into the shop.
Each varieties of companies have been generally paying rather more than their neighbors, filling up the pockets of economic landlords.
“There’s a number of banks on the market which can be paying 2.5x what market is,” mentioned Noam Aziz, managing director at Meridian Retail Leasing.
The financial institution and pharmacy takeover of New York’s streetscape didn’t come with out backlash. In 2012, the Metropolis Council handed zoning restrictions on the Higher West Aspect banning banks from taking on storefronts wider than 25 toes.
Two years later, Manhattan had much more financial institution storefronts, peaking at 702 areas, in response to an evaluation from the Nationwide Neighborhood Reinvestment Coalition.
However now, each chain banks and drug shops are downsizing and shutting up retailers. A lot of these 15-year leases signed within the aughts and 2010s are expiring.
Nationwide tendencies have meant that the massive banks merely don’t want all that house anymore, mentioned Jason Richardson, senior director of analysis on the NCRC. Federal laws within the wake of the worldwide monetary disaster standardized mortgage lending and made it a much less relational enterprise, whereas fin-tech corporations encroached on small enterprise lending. Nationwide surveys present fewer persons are going to financial institution branches. In the meantime, consolidation within the trade has made some branches redundant.
“Yearly, a financial institution has to have a look at their steadiness sheet and say, ‘do we actually want this department?’” Richardson mentioned. “There’s received to be a number of stress on them yearly to justify the existence of each department they’ve received of their footprint.”
Prior to now ten years, the variety of financial institution branches in Manhattan has fallen by almost 27 %, in response to an NCRC evaluation.
For drugstore chains, e-commerce retailers and mail-order pharmacies have minimize into income, Miller mentioned. CVS introduced in 2021 it might be closing 900 shops nationally over three years, adopted by the extra closure of 271 shops introduced in 2025. In New York alone, Ceremony Help had 33 areas within the 5 boroughs earlier than it shut down final yr. The variety of chain pharmacies in New York Metropolis declined by 16 % between 2024 and 2025, in response to data from the Center for an Urban Future.
It doesn’t assist that chain pharmacies have been locking up their merchandise to forestall theft, which results in a less-than-leisurely purchasing expertise. Walgreens’ former CEO Timothy Wentworth admitted throughout an earnings name in 2025 that locked-up gross sales circumstances do “affect how gross sales work by the shop as a result of once you lock issues up, for instance, you don’t promote as lots of them.”
Soutendijk mentioned he’s personally discovered purchasing on the Duane Reade under Cushman & Wakefield’s workplace “not a pleasing expertise.”
“You don’t have to be a retail specialist to expertise that,” he mentioned.
When these companies pull out or transfer elsewhere, they go away landlords with massive areas to fill. The everyday chain pharmacy was 8,000 to 12,000 sq. toes, Soutendijk mentioned. A financial institution department within the aughts was equally 6,000 to eight,000 sq. toes.
Different retailers simply don’t want that a lot house. And so they can’t pay these rents, even when landlords have come to count on them.
Aziz mentioned he’s advertising and marketing an 8,500-square-foot Manhattan storefront that has been vacant since 2019. Ceremony Help was paying $1.3 million per yr for the lease, however a brand new one will pull in simply $500,000.
The answer then is to cut up one storefront into a number of. That method, the landlords can start to method what they have been making earlier than, he mentioned.
Breaking apart a big unit will be costly. It usually means not simply placing up partitions however including HVAC into the separate items, placing in restrooms, and splitting utilities. Changing a former financial institution can imply eradicating an previous vault — a six-figure expense, Miller mentioned.
Giant, institutional landlords don’t want a lot convincing. They’ve the capital to deploy to get their areas rented. Co-op boards and small landlords are more likely to battle extra with making the funding, Soutendijk mentioned.
When these landlords can discover a single-tenant to fill their areas, it’s usually smaller grocery shops, Miller mentioned. Complete Meals’ small-format shops, referred to as Day by day Retailers, have been popping up in former drug shops and banks. Within the outer boroughs, two former Ceremony Aids in Ridgewood and Bedford-Stuyvesant are being transformed right into a Whole Foods and a Foodtown, respectively.
However general, turning giant financial institution branches into smaller storefronts makes for a extra diversified streetscape, Soutendijk mentioned. The range advantages retail shoppers and likewise landlords, who now have some safety in case one tenant can’t pay.
Those that complained concerning the financial institution and drugstore takeover, Soutendijk mentioned, are getting their want.
“Now drug shops are being damaged up into Starbucks and Nayas,” he mentioned. “I’m certain the subsequent set of laws can be anti-Sweetgreen, anti-Clean Road.”
Learn extra
The Manhattan luxury retail corridors where vacancy has hit multi-decade lows
NY Dirt: The murky real estate dispute behind the Kips Bay AMC closure
