| Opening Date: | 2003 |
| Floors: | 5 |
| Publictransit: | at (New York City Subway) |
The Shops at Columbus Circle is an upscale shopping mall in Deutsche Bank Center, a skyscraper complex in Manhattan, New York City. It is located at Columbus Circle, next to the southwestern corner of Central Park.
Then retail space, designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects, opened in February 2004 with 40 stores and 10 restaurants.[1] The original tenant plan consisted of new locations of Tourneau, J. Crew, Sephora, Williams Sonoma.[2] [3] The shops also opened the largest Whole Foods Market at 59000ft2 and flagship branches of Equinox and Borders.[3]
The shopping mall includes Lululemon, H&M, L'Occitane, Michael Kors, Hugo Boss, Tumi, Coach, J.Crew and Stuart Weitzman.[4] The mall also has a high-esteemed collection of restaurants such as the Michelin 3-star Per Se by chef Thomas Keller, Masa by chef Masa Takayama,[5] the East Coast flagship of Williams Sonoma, and a Whole Foods Market. It is owned by The Related Companies.[6]
When opened, the Whole Foods Market at Columbus Circle sold liquor from an attached room near the cash registers away from the main shopping aisles. However, this configuration was in violation of New York's liquor licensing laws, which require grocery stores to have a separate street entrance to their liquor departments, ostensibly to avoid minors from buying liquors. In 2005, Whole Foods settled with state authorities and closed its liquor operations at Columbus Circle, hoping to transfer its license to a new location it would be opening on the Lower East Side.[7] The space formerly used for liquor now sells Whole Foods' ECO line of cotton/hemp clothing, Whole Foods' health line Whole Body, and a restaurant, On Tap.