Clouds, Silver Linings and a Mall in the Sky

By JAMES BARRON

It began as a concept with, at best, a checkered history: a mall in the city. This one was to look different, with quartz and granite and an irregular shape, and be different, with very expensive restaurants instead of a food court.

A year and a half later, the public pullout of the big-name chef who was to fill one of the few remaining vacancies has some people wondering about the Time Warner Center, the silver-skinned complex at 10 Columbus Circle. It brought together the restaurants, a hotel, a condominium and stores, along with the workings of Time Warner - from offices for its magazines to studios for CNN - and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

For Manhattan, it was something of a gamble. Malls in Manhattan have not had the best track record. Malls, almost by definition, are about cars and huge parking lots. Also, while Manhattan may not have room for big-box stores, the vast majority of its stores are boxes: discrete squares or rectangles, each with its own door facing a street, not an indoor corridor.

The Time Warner Center is a city within the city, a vertical world reached by elevators or escalators. When it opened in February 2004 with a party that attracted everyone from Cindy Crawford to Gov. George E. Pataki, some partygoers wondered how soon crowds would find things beyond the first and second floors, where the stores are. The restaurants are on the third and fourth floors.

Hotel-industry analysts say that the hotel, the Mandarin Oriental, has hit its stride. Retail specialists say that the Whole Foods market, on the lower level, is booming.

Some of the restaurants upstairs received good reviews, and restaurateurs say those restaurants appear to be doing well, an idea confirmed by an effort to make reservations yesterday. All the restaurants except Per Se offered to make reservations available for today or tomorrow, though some very early or very late. Fridays and Saturdays were already booked until late in the evening, but the Japanese restaurant Masa offered a table for two at 6 p.m. on Saturday. The first table available at Per Se - whose tasting menu runs $210, including tip - was for lunch on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, because Per Se will not make a reservation more than two months in advance. Tomorrow is another day. The Tuesday after Thanksgiving will be available then.

The retail space is some of the most expensive in Manhattan - $250 to $300 a square foot, brokers say, about what stores pay on Madison Avenue. And Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner, says that the center is flourishing.

"Williams-Sonoma and Borders are having their highest per-square-foot sales here of anywhere," Mr. Parsons said. "Jazz at Lincoln Center is, I think, the finest performance arts center in the country. All but three or four condos sold out. We are very happy here. It is a huge success."

Spokeswomen for Williams-Sonoma and Borders said that they did not release detailed sales figures on individual stores. A spokeswoman for Whole Foods said it did not, either, although she said that the store in the Time Warner Center "is one of our top performers."

Yet Charlie Trotter, a celebrity chef from Chicago who was planning to establish a New York beachhead, has parted ways with the Time Warner Center. And Jean-Georges Vongerichten's V Steakhouse, which received at best lukewarm reviews, may be on its way out.

Kenneth A. Himmel, the president and chief executive of the retail-development division of the Related Companies, said on Monday that he was looking for a replacement for V Steakhouse. But Mr. Vongerichten's partner, Phil Suarez, said the departure was not definite, adding, "We're doing decent numbers."

Still, Alfred Portale, a chef and co-owner of Gotham Bar and Grill, is one of at least two restaurateurs who have been approached about taking over the third-floor space that Mr. Trotter's restaurant was to have occupied. Danny Meyer, whose Union Square Hospitality Group owns restaurants in the Flatiron district and at the Museum of Modern Art, has also been contacted about the Charlie Trotter space. Like Mr. Portale, he would not discuss any details.

At lunchtime yesterday, Miriam Schumacher of Tenafly, N.J., was sitting in the balcony area outside the restaurants. "This is a place to escape, an oasis in the city," she said. "I come here as often as I can." But while she has a fondness for Whole Foods, she said she spends little time in the other stores.

Manhattan has never fervently embraced the mall concept. While Trump Tower's 22-year-old shopping atrium on Fifth Avenue draws some tourists (thanks to its supporting role in "The Apprentice"), Herald Center, the 10-story mall inside the former Gimbel's department store on Herald Square, has had a troubled history. Originally bankrolled by Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Philippine dictator, it opened in 1985 with tenants that included Ann Taylor, Brookstone and Caswell-Massey. After a mortgage default and an auction, it was reinvented as a discount mall, with stores like Payless Shoes.

Vertical dining, too, remains an exception in Manhattan. Yesterday at Time Warner, the Dean & DeLuca cafe inside the Borders store was full. How many customers the restaurants draw from within the building is an open question.

"To tell you the truth, I rarely go to those restaurants," said Doug Ganley, a CNN producer. "I've had drinks a couple times at Stone Rose and occasionally run down to Whole Foods to grab something. But we have a cafeteria that is pretty nice, and the price is certainly cheaper than those restaurants."

Restaurant-industry specialists talk not about price but location. Mr. Trotter's restaurant was to go on the third floor, while V Steakhouse, Stone Rose and Per Se are on the fourth floor. But restaurateurs say that one would not go there unless one knew to go there. And they say that this was not helped by the way the Time Warner Center turned out - uninviting and unexciting, they maintain.

"The restaurant floors were designed to look just like any of the other retail floors," said Michael Whiteman, an international hotel and restaurant consultant. "It's cold, it's gray, it's dark. There's no sense of anybody eating, drinking or having fun."