The worm has finally turned on the Time Warner Center. Notes and quotes from this weekend's NYPost real estate section cover story on how the place has gone from the Toast of the Town to Toasted in a mere five months:
1) Apartments still available in tony Mandarin Oriental and in the TWC proper. "I would've thought it would be sold out by now," says Jonathan Miller of leading New York real estate appraiser Miller Samuel.
2) Mall traffic crawling: "Foot traffic at those stores is often light. Save for the ridiculous overcrowding at basement behemoth Whole Foods... weekday activity in the shops is slow."
3) Plenty of table space at Bar Masa: Last Tuesday, it "was seating walk-in customers with no wait. A lone customer sat at the bar as waiters clustered in front of the kitchen. 'We're not surprised we're able to seat people really quickly,' manager Tommy Todd says. 'This is a mall and you have to get New Yorkers to overcome that.'"
4) Endlessly delayed Cafe Gray opening: now set for Sept. 1.
5) Corcoran's Patricia Cliff: "Is it a success? It's much too soon to say. The jury's still out."
Full disclosure: there's some good news about the TWC, too, but what fun is that? Our kudos to the Post on this old school-style takedown.
· Time Warner Center's Hit Top Prices, But It's Not Sold Out [NYPost]