By Liana Grey

Sperry Top-Sider, a vendor of high-end boat shoes for men and women, is opening its first Manhattan shop in the Flatiron District this fall. 

Laura Pomerantz and Betty Ende of PBS Reality Advisors helped Sperry secure a 5,000 s/f storefront at 103 Fifth Avenue, a prewar loft building near 18th Street. 

The space, which spans the building’s ground floor and basement, was listed at $275 per s/f. Jason Pruger and Kate Cohen of Newmark Knight Frank’s retail division represented 103 Fifth’s landlord, Harlington Realty.

Sperry, which will be replacing an outpost of Juicy Couture, invented America’s first boat shoe in 1935 and now sells dress shoes along with trendy nautical footwear. It’s the latest in a string of innovative apparel and beauty retailers drawn to the Ladies’ Mile portion of Fifth Avenue.

As Real Estate Weekly exclusively reported last week, L’Occitane en Provence, an environmentally conscious bodycare and fragrance shop based in France, is opening soon on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 22nd Street. 

Eisenberg and Eisenerg, a tuxedo shop on West 17th Street near Fifth, has been a neighborhood fixture since the 19th Century, and Wedding Atelier, a couture gown boutique, has thrived on the second floor of 103 Fifth Avenue since last decade. 

The Flatiron Building itself is home to Origins, an organic cosmetics chain with frontage on Fifth Avenue.  

“Men’s and women’s wear do equally well in the Flatiron District,” said Pruger of NKF. Several niche boutiques, including Intimacy, a bra-fitting specialist, considered the space at 103 Fifth Avenue before Sperry signed a lease, Pruger said. 

“Sperry is a well-known brand and they wanted to make an impact with their first location,” he explained. “The Flatiron District was perfect.”