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Shopping Centers Today -> December 2003
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UPSCALE AMERICANA UPS ITS SCALE WITH ADDITION
BY DEBRA HAZEL
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MANHASSET, N.Y. — The Sept. 3 debut of the Americana at Manhasset expansion felt more like a family reunion than a grand reopening. Those attending the brief festivities at the upscale Long Island shopping center included its developer, senior executives of major fashion houses, county officials, favorite customers and the architect for whom the expansion represented a long-cherished dream come true.
His dream? “What I wanted to do was get rid of the Waldbaums,” said Peter Marino, principal of New York City-based Peter Marino and Associates, in an interview with SCT. The longtime tenant simply didn’t belong in a center filled with luxury retailers whose sales exceed $1,000 per square foot, he added. “People would ask, ‘What is this thing?’ It just didn’t work.”
The supermarket’s lease finally expired, paving the way for the latest phase of a redevelopment Marino first designed almost 20 years ago.
Although Waldbaums no longer suited the Americana’s profile, a grocery store had anchored the center since 1956, when it opened on the corner of Northern Boulevard and Searingtown Road. In those days, the Americana served a middle-class suburbia with moderately priced stores. Within a few decades, however, the increasing affluence of its Nassau County market (SCT, December 2002), where household incomes routinely top $100,000, presented an opportunity for the project’s reinvention.
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In 1985 Frank Castagna, chairman of Garden City-based Castagna Realty Co. — which has owned and operated the Americana since acquiring the property for it in 1955 — approached Marino about creating a master redevelopment plan. The Americana was still a neighborhood center back then. Marino, who is best known for designing high-end designer boutiques, replied, “I don’t do shopping centers,” Castagna recalled during the reopening ceremonies. (Marino corrected the account: “I don’t do suburban shopping centers,” he said.)
“I responded that I’m not asking you to do a shopping center,” Castagna told the gathered guests, “but to redefine the Americana and plan our future. Some months later he stunned me with the vision of what the Americana could be. That vision from 18 years ago is substantially what you see here today.”
Over the years, the project has unfolded in phases into a 220,000-square-foot shopping street of glass, limestone and granite, lined with tenants to rival the finest in the world: Coach, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, St. John and Yves Saint Laurent. It has become a regional landmark, Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi told SCT, as well as a tourist destination in its own right and an anchor to what is called the Miracle Mile, a stretch of high-end retailing.
“It’s a shopping center, but so much more,” Suozzi said.
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| There’s also a Ferragamo and a Coach. With sales per square foot exceeding $1,000, Americana is among the best-performing shopping centers in the world. |
The Americana’s most recent expansion, begun last year, added 40,000 square feet. Razing the 29,000-square-foot Waldbaums helped make way for new shops, including Bottega Veneta, Christian Dior and Salvatore Ferragamo. It also allowed existing retailers to relocate to larger units where they can display their full collections. Louis Vuitton, for example, moved from a 1,200-square-foot store featuring primarily its leather goods to a 5,500-square-foot unit that has room to offer its ready-to-wear and fine jewelry lines. For the retailer, it represented a vital move in an important market.
“We’ve always had a tremendously loyal following on Long Island,” Lisa Capozzi, Vuitton’s vice president of sales merchandising and forecasting for North America, told SCT. “The response has been fantastic, with sales terrific across all categories.”
The Americana still isn’t finished, despite the grand reopening. Additional boutiques were set to open in November, and Burberry will relocate to a larger unit in February.
The project clearly has a special place in Castagna’s heart. In the 18 years since initiating its transformation into a high-end shopping destination, he has not built another shopping center to rival the Americana, preferring to focus instead on its continual improvement. (The rest of Castagna’s portfolio comprises office and residential properties and one other retail center, built in 1980.)
“All of the ingredients came together here,” he said.
And Marino has never designed another shopping center either, despite repeated requests.
“I have the Americana,” he said. “I have the best client and won’t work for anyone else.”
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