Revitalizing Herald Square

The 100-year-old Gimbels department store building in New York's Herald Square — which later became home to Abraham & Straus, then Stern's and then the vertical Manhattan Mall — has added the ad agency Foot, Cone & Belding as a commercial tenant in a new conversion project.

The project, when completed, will turn the building (vacant for about a year) into a mixed-use agglomeration of retail (on the two levels below ground and the first two levels above ground), the ad agency's office space and children's apparel showrooms (on the top four floors).

Though the retail mall failed, the space was considered valuable because of the lunchtime crowds that flocked to a seventh-floor food court and the confluence of subway lines and commuter rail lines beneath the building. The food court, which produced annual sales of $25 million, will be moved to the second floor, in the retail part of the building.