TikTok Helps Drive Retail Rebound in SoHo – NY City Lens

Post-pandemic boutiques selling vintage apparel are replacing luxury goods stores By Elizabeth Brewer and Chantal Vaca Les Miss owner Leah Gans prepares for incoming customers on Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Chantal Vaca for New York City Lens. A couple of months after the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, Abby Price prepared to launch Abbode, her vintage home decor boutique in SoHo. She officially opened the day after she graduated from Parsons School of Design in May 2021. “The only reason I was able to do it was because of COVID,” she said. Aside from the sickness and death, the pandemic hit SoHo hard financially, according to Jonathan Apple, a commercial real estate agent in the downtown Manhattan neighborhood. Tourist spending, which had previously sustained the district, had vanished. “For Lease” signs appeared more frequently, and rents for retail space plunged. The average asking rents on Broadway between Houston and Broome Streets fell almost 40 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to the Real Estate Board of New York’s Spring 2021 Retail Market Report. “It was almost name your price during COVID,” Apple said. “Rents were being negotiated at 50% of the previous market.”  Abbode’s latest vintage finds displayed at their Elizabeth…
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