Times Square to get 3-story cannabis shop

This story was republished with permission from Crain’s New York and written by Julianne Cuba. 

A massive cannabis retailer is coming to Times Square this fall, according to one of the business partners involved in the new venture.

James Mallios, an attorney who now specializes in the hospitality and real estate industries and who serves as managing partner of restaurants on Long Island and in New York City, is teaming up with William Norgard, a U.S. Army veteran who sued the state – and won – over the eligibility requirements for its much-maligned rollout of legal weed shops, to open up a state-sanctioned, three-story cannabis retail experience in the entirety of the building at 719 Seventh Ave.

Norgard, along with three other veteran plaintiffs, accused the state of favoring applicants who had gone through the criminal-justice system for a cannabis-related offense over disabled veterans like himself. The case was settled last year, and Norgard and his business partners were granted a provisional license from the state in order to open at the Seventh Avenue location, which also goes by 30 Times Square, according to Mallios and state records.

“We’re excited to, in the fall, unveil what is possibly the largest retail cannabis store on the eastern seaboard, in the middle of arguably one of the most visited places on the planet,” said Mallios.

Norgard and Mallios, together with others who remain unidentified, signed a 20-year lease for the roughly 10,000-square-foot space under the limited liability company 2 Forest Park Lane, records show, whose address is linked to a Mykonos-inspired restaurant in the Hamptons called Calissa. Mallios serves as the managing partner of both Calissa and Amali, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant on the Upper East Side.

The building’s landlord, whom Mallios declined to name, bought the property in the heart of Times Square from SL Green for $32.4 million under the limited liability company AMWB 719, which appears tied to Miami-based firm Boich Investment Group and former SL Green President Andrew Mathias, according to a June deed that appeared in the city register last week. SL Green purchased the original Seventh Avenue building, at the corner of West 48th Street, for $41.1 million in 2014, records show.

Mallios said he and Norgard are in the process of obtaining a trademarked name for their new enterprise, which he says will offer a unique experience on each floor and differ greatly from the many other — and what he called “typical” — legal dispensaries currently in operation throughout the city, including one just around the corner on Eighth Avenue. Mallios also described the new business as “luxury” but declined to expand further on what exactly that means for the shop.

“We’re very excited about the look and feel of the store,” said Mallios, who declined to comment on the details of the lease agreement.

SL Green declined to comment on the sale of the building, citing a “quiet period” leading up to its earnings call. And neither the Dallas-based family investment firm VerCap Management, which provided $23 million in financing, according to city records, nor Boich Investment Group responded to requests for comment by press time.

Tourists have once again been flocking to Times Square as the city continues to recover from the pandemic, even as the occupancy rate of its commercial real estate sector has taken a bit of a dip in the last year, according to the latest data collected by the Times Square Alliance. In May of this year, 243,352 pedestrians visited the area daily — down slightly from the 306,523 who visited during that month last year — and its occupancy rate dropped from 82.3% in 2023 to 76.4% so far this year. And according to the report, 84% of its storefronts were open for business in May 2023.