New York, in its bid to give Manhattan’s iconic Fifth Avenue its first major makeover in its 200 years, plans to spend over $400 million to make the famed stretch rival Paris’ Champs-Élysées.
New York is allocating $250 million, on top of a $152.7 million initial investment announced in December, to transform the corridor between Bryant Park and Central Park, Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement Wednesday.
Billed as the first major redesign in the corridor’s 200-year history, the proposed overhaul of the 100-foot-wide famed tourist and shopping stretch aims to expand the sidewalks by 46%, shorten crosswalks, reduce the number of traffic lanes from five to three, and add trees and lighting to make it a pedestrian-centered boulevard, the city and the private-public Future of Fifth Partnership has said.
The partnership involves city agencies and four business improvement districts and nonprofits: the Fifth Avenue Association, Grand Central Partnership, Central Park Conservancy and Bryant Park Corp.
The investment comes as the city seeks to make commercial corridors more pedestrian-friendly as part of its move to reshape its office-dependent areas and other commercial business districts as 24-7 live, work and play domains.
As New York’s retail and office markets both see signs of rebound from the pandemic, the city said Fifth Avenue since 2023 has had more than 10 commercial real estate sales totaling $3.9 billion. About four-fifths of the foot traffic has returned to the area, Adams’ office said, adding that the corridor's redesign will “help propel this growth.”
The upper stretch of Fifth Avenue between 49th and 60th streets, home to luxury flagships from Saks Fifth Avenue to Bergdorf Goodman and famed attractions including Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, is the priciest retail street in the United States and one of the most expensive in the world, Cushman & Wakefield studies have found. While first-quarter direct-space retail asking rent on the Upper Fifth Avenue strip declined 0.5% to $2,203 per square foot, it was still almost $700 above New York’s second-most expensive retail area, Times Square, where first-quarter asking rent was $1,541, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
The makeover of Fifth Avenue “represents a new Fifth Avenue not only for shoppers and tourists, but for all New Yorkers who live and work in the neighborhood,” said Ed Hogan, board chair of the Fifth Avenue Association and executive vice president and head of retail leasing at Vornado Realty Trust, in the statement.
The design of the new Fifth Avenue draws inspiration from Fifth Avenue's historic landmarks and art deco influences as well as other iconic shopping strips including the Champs-Élysées; Calle Serrano in Madrid; Bond, Oxford and Regent streets in London; and Ginza in Tokyo.
Describing the stretch as New York’s “Street of Dreams,” First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro said the redesign will create “a tree-lined, pedestrian mecca that rivals the Champs-Élysées.”
The city and its partners have selected engineering firms Arcadis and Sam Schwartz and landscape architect Field Operations to lead the design and study, with preliminary planning work expected to be completed by this summer.