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Brookfield Place:
Hudson Eats/Le District
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CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD
B
rookfield Place is another project on the
list where multiple dining concepts reside
under one roof. It is home to Hudson Eats,
which features a mix of purveyors ranging
from chef-driven concepts like tapas from
Chef José Andrés to sushi, bagels and street
fare.
It also embodies the European-style single
provider concept of Le District (Brookfield’s
French-themed answer to Eataly) which
includes three sit-down venues (Le Bar,
Beaubourg and L’Appart) and four food
station “districts” (Market District, Garden
District, Café District and the Restaurant
District) where shoppers can find fresh cut
flowers, fresh baguettes, whole fish, cheese
plates, champagne, oysters and steak frites as
well as patisseries, chocolatiers and baristas
and pretty much everything in between, from
a Gallic perspective.
Situated immediately across the street from
the World Trade Center Memorial site in
Manhattan’s Battery Park City neighborhood
is Brookfield Place, originally known as the
World Financial Center and currently owned
by Toronto-based Brookfield Properties. The
project is a massive, mixed-use office and
retail plaza consisting of six buildings totaling
more than 7.9 million square feet (MSF) of
commercial (mostly high-rise office) space.
The project was renamed in 2014 following
extensive renovations, including those made
to its retail space. The majority of the space
created to house Brookfield Place’s current
lineup of eateries was created during that
time. We estimate the food offerings here to
total roughly 30,000 SF of space. This project
actually shares direct underground access to
the same subway transportation hub (World
Trade Center PATH station) that also feeds
the newly opened Westfield World Trade
Center Mall and its broad offering of food
concepts led by Eataly.
As to the question as to whether one area can
support this many food hall projects, we don’t
view that as an issue. An explosion of
residential growth in this area has added
thousands of new apartment and
condominium units to the neighborhood over
the past decade. The World Trade Center
Memorial has emerged as one of the top New
York City tourist destinations, and is expected
to continue to draw roughly three million
tourists per year to the immediate area.
Consequently, with a strong local residential
and daytime population demographic, plus
immediate access to one of Manhattan’s
primary transportation hubs and one of its
most popular tourism draws, the question is:
can the market support all of these concepts?