Commercial Real Estate & Advisory
Commercial Real Estate & Advisory
Chocolate Bar founder and two staffers take space on Hudson Street for a masculine maker of pies, cookies and cakes; new spot dodges French undertones.
A new bakery will rise in the West Village. The founder of Chocolate Bar, a dessert shop on Eighth Avenue, between Jane and West 12th streets, will be setting up shop at 535 Hudson St. for her latest venture—Doughboy Bake Shop, which she bills as an all-American bakery.
Alison Nelson and two Chocolate Bar employees, the husband-and-wife team Vanessa and Matt Keefe, have signed a nine-year lease for 1,600 square feet on Hudson Street, between Charles and Perry streets. The shop will focus on pies, cookies and cakes.
“I live and work in the West Village, and there are a lot of wonderful bakeries in the far West Village, but they all have a French-themed undertone,” said Ms. Nelson. “There is really not a good American bakery to get cookies, cupcakes or even a pie for the holidays.”
Ms. Nelson also noted that there are many schools in the area, to which her bakery will cater.
The lease, with an asking rent of $247 per square foot, began Sept. 1, but the bakery does not expect to move into the space until the end of the month. Although the previous tenant, bakery and gelato shop Irene’s Dolci, left them with the basic plumbing and electrical infrastructure, Ms. Nelson has big plans to remake the space. She plans to decorate it primarily with gray, blue and yellow to pay homage to service members and civil servants.
“It will be a very masculine kind of place,” Ms. Nelson said. “We want it to be the type of place that we envision our fathers and their friends will feel comfortable going to.”
Doughboy Bake Shop was represented by Sinvin Real Estate’s STEVE RAPPAPORT. The landlord, Icon Realty Management Real Estate, was represented in-house by Todd Cohen.