Katya Kazakina finds on Bloomberg that the gallery ecosystem in New York’s Chelsea is doing a good job of regenerating itself with 50 galleries changing location since July of last year:
Not long after John Connelly Presents closed its West 27th Street doors on Aug. 6, Jeff Bailey, whose gallery is tucked away in a building on West 25th Street, saw a chance to grow. He is taking over Connelly’s lease on Aug. 23. “It’s so much more visibility,” Bailey said. “It’s at least a third larger than what I currently have. It’s on the ground floor. And it’s on a really great block.”
Dealer Robert Goff, who is shutting his West 23rd Street gallery at the end of August, put the rental on the market and got two offers the following morning, he said. Asya Geisberg, New York-based curator and writer, plans to open a gallery in the space in September. Ground-floor rents are down to $55 to $75 a square foot from $70 to $95 in Chelsea, according to Stuart Siegel, executive managing director at Grubb & Ellis Co., a Santa Ana, California-based commercial-real-estate firm.
Siegel is working with eight Chelsea galleries seeking to expand or get better premises in the area. “There really isn’t anything available,” he said. “Activity has been quite fierce.”
Shrugging Off Recession, Art Slump, Many Chelsea Galleries Keep Trading Up (Bloomberg)
