NYC rent is too damn high for Geoffrey

Toys R Us closes iconic Times Square store after rent rose to $42 million. A year.


Toys R Us closes Times Square store after rent rose by five times



1: This has to be a misprint, right?
2: Is it legal? You could buy the place for $42 million. Or even double that.
3: Holy shit!

 

Is it legal? LOL.

 

So, doing the math, and just to pay for the rent alone,
the store would need sales of $4,794.52 an hour, 24/6/365.

Can't imagine what it would take to earn a profit in that scenario.

 

JR wonders how Olive Garden survives in Times Square. Charging $400 for NYE dinner might help.

 

Retail toy markup varies substantially across items, but as I understand it 300%'s a good cocktail-napkin number. So your $5 (wholesale) item needs to fetch $15 at retail. Out of that $10 margin, you've got to cover everything ... wages, profits, rent, other overhead, etc., etc. So hourly rent of $4,800 would have to come out of a shitpile more hourly revenue (assuming a minimally profitable setup).

 

That Toys R Us store is so iconic that it opened in 2001.

 

Then it must be saved! The very fabric of the city is in peril!

 

On our trips to NYC we found it handy for one thing that is in short supply in that area: bathrooms.

 

And the same family has owned the building since it was built in the 1930s.

 

Right. And double that figure if the store is open 12 hours a day.
And that's before the cost of the products, plus payroll, electricity, taxes, etc., etc.

Maybe the store was a loss leader for the chain, for good reason. But it's crazy retail math.

 

I have it on good authority that smallpotatoes was consulted on the decision to locate there ...

 

It would be interesting to know how many of the chain stores in Times Square are highly profitable or if they are mostly about having a presence there.