Crain's NY Business: Besen Moves Retailer to Amsterdam Avenue

Down & Quilt stitches together lease for new shop on Amsterdam for 20% less than it was paying on Columbus.

Facing increasingly high rents on Columbus Avenue, one retailer is moving—a block to the west. Down & Quilt Shop, which had been at 518 Columbus Ave. for nearly three decades, recently signed a 10-year deal for 500 square feet at 527 Amsterdam Ave., between West 85th and West 86th streets. Asking rent was $150 a square foot.

“She could have been knocked out of the box, and now she has a new spot,” said Elliott Dweck, a broker with Besen Retail, of tenant Beth Scholten. “It’s a quaint, main street-type of shop, and those don’t hang around [on expensive avenues].”