Shops inside the year-old Long Island Rail Road hub deep beneath Grand Central are likely to remain vacant until 2025.

The Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall and St. George terminals, whose 20 retail spaces were filled to capacity with small businesses before the coronavirus pandemic, are now looking for four new tenants.

And at the once-bustling Turnstyle Underground Market inside the 59th Street-Columbus Circle station, just six of nearly 40 shops and kiosks were open on a recent weekday morning as riders hustled past to catch the subway.

“You walk through and more than half the stores are closed,” commuter Wayne Roberts, 49, said while walking through the retail ageway that opened in 2016 inside the MTA’s seventh-busiest station. “There’s nobody really buying anything and it’s almost like a waste of space.”

But as subway, rail and ferry ridership draws closer to pre-pandemic levels, MTA and city officials say they are optimistic about a coming retail revival in and around transportation hubs.

While just 60 of the 190 retail spaces in the subway system are currently filled 17 others have tenants whose plans are under review or construction, MTA spokesperson Joana Flores told THE CITY. The remaining 113 will be marketed over the next nine months to a year or have licenses under negotiation, she added.

“The resurgence of ridership has sparked a revival of retail, with local businesses and national chains seeing a renewed vibrancy in marketing to the MTA’s millions of daily riders,” Flores said.

Still, it’s a steep climb for the transportation authority, which last year saw its revenue from retail in the subway sink to less than $3 million, Crain’s New York Business reported in October — down from $9.5 million prior to the pandemic. Across its entire transportation network, the MTA’s intake from retail space rent sank from $72 million in 2019 to $35.7 million in 2022, but has since climbed back to more than $50 million, according to Crain’s.

Of course, the MTA has a budget of more than $19 billion, which means the retail dip only affects decimal places, but every penny counts.

“Every dollar the MTA receives in revenue is needed,” said Kate Slevin, executive vice president for the Regional Plan Association. “Hopefully, the return of ridership will help bring back some of the businesses that bring riders convenience in their daily lives — the shoe shiners, cleaners, food stores.”

Getting Creative

The hoped-for retail boost is in line with commuters returning to various modes of transportation — weekday subway and commuter rail usage has climbed to nearly 80% of pre-pandemic levels, according to MTA data, while the city Transportation Department says the Staten Island Ferry’s ridership climbed to 15.7 million last year, down about 7 million from 2019.

The Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown, which has approximately two dozen retailers, is actively marketing spaces for new tenants, a spokesperson said. The sprawling complex last year had an average of 98,000 departing engers on weekdays, down from 125,000 before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, transit officials are finding novel uses for their empty spaces. 

“As retailing in transit has evolved, the MTA is also recognizing new opportunities to creatively occupy some former retail units in ways — like displaying artwork — that culturally enrich communities,” said Flores.

The transit agency began soliciting ideas in November for artists’ or nonprofit groups’ rent-free use of retail spaces in the subway system that Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development, described at the time as “uniquely challenging to fill.”

“We are looking to activate vacant spaces to improve the station atmosphere,” she said at the time.. “This initiative seeks partners who can offer engaging and creative activations like art installations or nonprofit programming to provide a socially beneficial use and bring more life to the station’s environment.”  

The environmental differences are stark at Grand Central.

Up at the old Grand Central Terminal, 75 of 92 retail spaces are filled inside the landmark rail hub, according to the MTA. But several stories below, the new Grand Central Madison’s 25,000-square-foot retail corridor is devoid of any shops except for a few carts that sell coffee and cupcakes.

“I even walked up the other way, thinking maybe there is some stuff there because it says ‘Shops,’” said Margie Caggiano, 68, who commutes to Long Island daily through Grand Central Madison. “But it’s nothing — it’s bleak.”

MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said ambitious retail plans for the sprawling multi-level complex had to be sidelined because of the pandemic.

“We were bidding the retail, it just so happened in the middle of COVID,” he said last week at an event marking Grand Central Madison’s first year of enger train service. “And at the time, the retail industry was flat on its back and nobody was making new investments.”

The MTA now expects to issue a request for proposals on the retail spaces at the end of March and plans to open a restaurant/bar in the ageway later this year.

Across town, in the newly redeveloped Penn Station concourse that links the 1/2/3 and A/C/E subway lines, several popular chains are now open, with more — including Shake Shack, Raising Canes and Pollo Campero — set to open later this year, according to Vornado Realty Trust. One block west, in the Moynihan Train Hall, new businesses and eateries have arrived in the three-year-old hub.

For all the new additions to the various transportation hubs, several commuters said they focus more on reaching their destinations on time than on shopping options.

“Coffee, a little food or snacks would be nice while you wait,” said Gio Portugal, who was waiting for an LIRR train to Jamaica from Grand Central Madison. “But for the most part, I think people are just trying to get in and out.”