Welles of SCG Retail handles 15,400 s/f lease

SCG Retail has signed a 15,400 s/f retail lease with Staples at Atlas Capital's 641 Sixth Ave. on the southwest corner of 20th St. in the Ladies' Mile district of Chelsea. The new two-level store will have 4,600 s/f on the ground floor and 10,800 s/f of space in the lower level. SCG Retail is a division of the Shopping Center Group from Atlanta, representing a merger of Northwest Atlantic and SCG. 641 Sixth Ave. is a relocation for the existing Staples store at 22nd and Sixth. The store is expected to open by the end of the year. RKF chairman & CEO Robert Futterman, executive vice president Gary Alterman and as-sociate Ross Berkowitz represented landlord Atlas Capital. Chase Welles, VP of SCG Retail and the exclusive New York Metro broker for Staples, said, "By relocating we were able to get into the middle of the Ladies' Mile trade area and lease a space which meets the physical parameters of Staples new urban prototype." "The space is on a highly visible corner with great foot traffic," Welles said. "There are multiple subway lines just a few blocks away. Manhattan has been a tremendous market for Staples and we expect this new location to do great." Headquartered outside Boston, Staples is the world's largest office products com-pany with 90,000 associates worldwide and operations in 26 countries through-out North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The brand invented the office superstore concept in 1986 and now has annual sales of $25 billion. Sta-ples currently operates 1,914 stores in North America.