Toy Center tenants on the move.

Halloween and seasonal products tenants, a subgroup within the toy industry who occupied tens of thousands of square feet in the Toy Center, have been making an exodus from the building to neighboring 1115 Broadway.

"We must have done at least 60,000 s/f of deals so far," said James Buslik, a principal at Adam & Co., the owner and managing agent of 1115 Broadway, called the Toys, Halloween & Seasonal Products Center

Among the more recent leases in the building was a 2,000 s/f deal with Halloween products manufacturer, the Febland Group, and a 6,200 s/f lease with seasonal products maker, The Paper Magic Group, in April. Costume company, Disguise, signed a lease for 13,000 s/f last year and will move into its space in either June or July. Rents in the building are in the $30 per s/f range.

1115 Broadway has also been drawing toy tenants. Playmobil USA and one of the world's largest board game manufacturers, Cardinal Industries, both of whom were former Toy Center tenants, took recent leases in the building for 1,500 s/f and 1,800 s/f respectively. Toy tenants Funrise, Battat, Plastwood, and GeoMag have all taken space within the last year.

"Altogether, the four of them occupy roughly 30,000 s/f," Buslik said.

The longtime home of the toy industry, the Toy Center, which is comprised of two adjacent buildings at 200 Fifth Avenue and 1107 Broadway, is slated for a conversion into residential condominiums, a change in use that has forced tenants to search for a new home and has already prompted many to vacate.

The bulk of the toy industry has banded together and is searching for a building in which it can relocate as a group. It has stated that it is interested in taking more than 300,000 s/f of space, an amount that many real estate experts say will give it better leverage with which to negotiate lower rents from landlords than if its many members were to stake out on their own.

Important for the toy tenants as well is the preservation of proximity to one another so that prospective toy buyers and retailers can easily stroll from one company's showroom to the next during the industry's yearly shows, a convenience that can best be maintained if the bulk of its tenants continue to share the same building.

Buslik said that the Halloween and seasonal products industry has such a concentrated presence now in 1115 Broadway, its tenants benefit now from this type of proximity and will host their yearly industry shows in the 270,000 s/f building as was done in the Toy Center.

Locked in an arduous space search amid the city's tightening real estate market, toy tenants meanwhile haven't been able to transition to a new location as smoothly yet. Buslik felt that the difficulty the toy industry has been experiencing in its search for space was a reflection not only of the shrinking list of big block spaces, but also of the likely hesitancy on the part of landlords wary to take on the credit risk presented by a group as diverse as the toy industry.

"You have tenants who are established companies and then there are smaller tenants who you can't be sure if they'll be around in 10 years," Buslik said. "Most of the toy tenants need showroom space which is expensive to build. Not a lot of landlords are going to want to spend a lot of money building out a space for a tenant they're not sure will be there for the term of the lease."

Buslik said he feels that the toy industry will eventually settle in a number of locations, his building included, to create a toy district rather than a toy building.