A Last-Minute Rush for Retailers
(05/20/2009) Leases are last-minute, low-key, and short-term in East Hampton Village this season, with a palette of madras, plaid, and plenty
 Kate Maier
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of pastel popping into store windows just days before Memorial Day.
Retail renters have taken advantage of the winter’s vacant storefronts by negotiating leases late in the game. As a result, the average rent “was all over the place, depending on how many months, which months,” and when the deal was sealed, said Hal Zwick, a commercial broker for Devlin McNiff Real Estate.
With empty storefronts languishing on Main Street and Newtown Lane, “landlords started to get a little worried come April, then they dropped the rents,” Mr. Zwick said.
“Come the end of April, there was supply and demand, and the few stores that were left” rented for more than landlords had anticipated.
“I don’t think there is one long-term lease that has been signed,” Mr. Zwick said. “Just about every new store is seasonal, either through September, October, or December, with the intention of, if things go well, they want to be back on a long-term basis,” he said.
“We have 22 of our own boutiques in the U.S. — East Hampton will be 22 and a half,” said Robert Chavez, the president and chief operating officer at Hermes, from a store opening at the King of Prussia shopping center in Pittsburgh this week. Mr. Chavez said that Hermes has signed a short-term lease at 63 Main Street here and will “stay open until Sept. 20, for four months.”
On Tuesday a small army of managers and members of the Hermes visual team scurried around the store in a pre-opening decorating frenzy. The walls of the former Victory Garden have been repainted a crisp white, and kaleidoscopes of ladies’ scarves, handbags, and men’s ties are dispersed amid flatware displays. There is an equestrian section, where a one-of-a-kind white leather saddle — “price available upon request” — is showcased.
Mr. Chavez said that the company had an eye on East Hampton “actually for the last several years.”
“We just weren’t ready to commit to a long-term lease, knowing that obviously the key selling period is in the summer months, when most people are there,” he said.
“We are, God willing, aiming for Friday,” said Tim Crout, the vice president of retail at Emilio Pucci, an ultraswank women’s fashion boutique with six other locations in the United States. From his corporate office in Manhattan, Mr. Crout said he was planning on “going out tomorrow” to set up shop in East Hampton next to Shoe-Inn on Newtown Lane.
Mr. Crout said the company had negotiated a short-term lease there “in the last month or so.”
On Main Street, Michael Kors has opened a store. Nearby, Brooks Brothers has set up a Country Club shop featuring floral prints, madras, and beach-inspired fashions. According to Mr. Zwick, Brooks Brothers had signed a sublease with Tumi, the luxury luggage company that bought the property last year.
On Tuesday, “Malia Mills” lettering had been placed over a faded green awning that still said “J. McLaughlin,” and the store stood empty, stark, and white, awaiting the arrival of the new tenant.
A Malia Mills shop that opened in Southampton last year, and Nicole Miller, a “brand ambassador” for the company, said the East Hampton store would be open on Saturday. (At 53 Job’s Lane, the Southampton location will open the same day.)
In an e-mail message, she indicated that she and Ms. Mills would spend the weekend jetting between the two stores, where swim separate sizes range from 30AA to 40DD.
Ms. Mills’s competition will include Trina Turk, a California-based designer who has advertised a “new summer pop-up store in East Hampton” on her Web site. The floor and walls of the former Cynthia Rowley were also deserving of a new coat of white paint, but as of Tuesday afternoon, none of the Trina Turk Collection, swimwear, or vintage patio furniture had yet hit the floor.
White walls and floors are part of the scheme for the East Hampton retail scene this summer, where the trend has shifted from fabulous flaunting to the subtle luxury of, say, designer flip-flops. “A few of the retailers, they weren’t going to go in big and fancy, to fit the economy, and to fit the mood of the people,” Mr. Zwick said.
“People are realizing, it may not make economic sense to duplicate your stores in East Hampton. A 1,000-to-1,500-square-foot store with more appropriate products based on the seasonality out here, even in good economic times, is what makes sense.”
Also on Main Street, Mayfair Jewelers, which closes for the winter season, has advertised a Memorial Day opening. Dan Kulchinsky, one of the store’s owners, was there putting things together on Tuesday. He too had jumped on the short-term lease bandwagon. He said that, in addition to the 73 Main Street store, his company would manage two more in the village this summer.
At 19 Main Street, beside Elie Tahari, the work of Kristen Farrell, a goldsmith and jewelry designer who lives in East Hampton and New York City, will be sold at Kristen Farrell boutique. Mayfair has also leased the space formerly occupied by Gems of the Past on Newtown Lane, and, with a fresh coat of paint, Jewel Hampton Consignment Boutique will open along with the two other stores this weekend.
Other corporations with a presence in East Hampton plan to unveil new stores for Memorial Day. Tommy Hilfiger has settled into its former space on Main Street, and a new Coach store opens on Newtown Lane today. “We are so excited to open, but it’s just business as usual,” said Laurie Lynch, a manager there.
An expanded J. Crew will make its debut in a new space on Main Street tomorrow. At J. Crew’s former outpost on Newtown Lane, black paper obscures the windows of a sister store called Madewell, where fashion fiends can walk up to place detailed blue jean orders at a denim bar.
While Madewell is not set to open until next Thursday, a street team of girls sporting the brand, the brainchild of J. Crew’s C.E.O., Mickey Drexler, will spend the weekend handing out muslin tote beach bags stuffed with sun block and other goodies, including beach towels featuring “Hamptons maps according to Madewell.”
“Memorial Day and the first half of June is not what it used to be out here,” Mr. Zwick said, so for stores like this one, missing the opening weekend is no big deal.
Even so, Steven Allan, a casual women’s and men’s fashion retailer, will try to make a Memorial Day opening at 52 Newtown Lane. (The Nines will not reopen there.)
“They wanted another space and got outbid — for this space, they came in Friday,” said Mr. Zwick, who had a signed lease on his desk Tuesday morning. With less than a week to prepare, “they are sending the truck out, and they are going to try, literally,” to open before the weekend, he said.