Commercial Real Estate & Advisory

Pizza Maker Brings Crust Cross-Country

By Adrianne Pasquarelli | March 16, 2009

Burritos are out and avocado pizza is in at 298 Bleecker St.

California chain Z Pizza recently signed a 10-year lease for 1,000 square feet on the ground floor, a 600-square-foot basement, and a 500-square-foot garden at the property, at Barrow Street and Seventh Avenue South. The asking rent for the ground floor, formerly home to a Burritoville, was $180 a square foot.

The new eatery, set to open by June, will be Z Pizza’s first foray into the Northeast. The chain, which specializes in healthful pizzas, has 70 West Coast locations; it plans to open a total of 10 Manhattan spots over the next five years.

Z Pizza’s location should help it gain walk-in customers.

“Bleecker Street in that area is a block with an awful lot of cachet and an awful lot of food businesses, so [Z Pizza] has many people to feed,” says STEVE RAPPAPORT, the senior director at Sinvin Realty who represented the landlord in the transaction.

Dino Mattessich, a vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle, negotiated on behalf of Z Pizza.