Faith Hope Consolo, chairman, and Joseph Aquino, executive vice president of Prudential Douglas Elliman's Retail Group have arranged another location for boutique Variazioni at 1043 Third Ave., between 61st and 62nd Sts. Neighboring stores in the area include Arche Shoes, American Apparel, Pookie & Sebastian and Urban Outfitters. For more than three decades, Variazioni has been known as a one-stop-shop for hip styles and hard-to-find labels, such as Joe's Jeans, Rock & Republic, Kier + J and Hudson Jeans. The new store will be its sixth Manhattan location, with two stores on the Upper West Side, and one each in Soho, Greenwich Village and Little Italy. Outside of New York, the retailer has one suburban unit in Millburn, NJ, for a total of seven stores in the Greater New York area. More significantly, the new location is the brand's first foray into the Upper East Side. To test the waters, Variazioni originally opened a pop-up shop at the location last spring. After seeing how it was welcomed in the area after just a few months, it signed a long-term lease. Adding to the desirability of the location, the building is currently undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation that includes the plaza directly in front of the store. In addition to the Variazioni store, Consolo and Aquino are the exclusive agents for three additional spaces at the site. "Placing an established hip boutique in the heart of one of the city's most active shopping districts was an obvious choice," said Consolo. "Ironically, we initially met some resistance because the owners needed to be convinced that Midtown East contained the right mix of super chic- and funky fashion lovers. But the pop-up store solved that problem completely." According to Aquino, "Faith and I have worked with the owners of Varizioni for many years and truly understood their consumer base and its needs. To us this location was a no-brainer, but knowing how pleased the owners are already makes this an even better deal." Consolo and Aquino represented both the landlord and the tenant for the long-term lease transaction. Prudential Douglas Elliman's Retail Group is the industry leader in retail leasing, investment sales and consulting services on a local, national and international scale. Its scope of work is comprehensive and extends to virtually every facet of retail real estate and every kind of retail location - from urban and suburban streets to malls, shopping centers, lifestyles centers and power centers. Prudential Douglas Elliman's retail clients come from every segment of the market from luxury fashion to mass merchandising. It works on behalf of private and public investors, entrepreneurial owners and real estate developers with significant portfolios or single assets. Offering a strategic platform of services, the Retail Leasing, Marketing and Sales Division specializes in creating customized, highly focused solutions on a client-by-client basis, oversees retail operations for the 50 Prudential commercial real estate offices (retail services divisions) nationwide, and is part of a preeminent real estate organization with more than 4,000 agents and a network of national and international affiliates. Ranked in the top five real estate brokerages nationally, Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate is an independently owned and operated member of the Prudential Real Estate Affiliates and an equal housing opportunity company.