BY AL BARBARINO

Exclusive shopping club Suite 1521 has signed a 4,000-square-foot lease at RFR’s 980 Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side.

The company, owned by Kim Kassel and Lizzie Tisch, will occupy showroom space on part of the 3rd floor and received exterior building signage.

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BY GUS DELAPORTE

IMC Asset Management has signed a 10-year, 5,904-square-foot lease for the entire 56th floor at 500 Fifth Avenue. The company, headquartered in the Netherlands, will relocate within the building, where asking rents were in the high-$70s per square foot.

The global asset manager, with approximately €1 billion under management, explored alternative locations in Midtown, according to Michael Affronti of CBRE, but settled on expanding within 500 Fifth Avenue.

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BY BILLY GRAY

In further confirmation of the stroller army's successful invasion of Long Island City, New York Kids Club signed a 15-year, 5,003-square-foot lease at 4545 Center Boulevard.

The private "enrichment center" for preschool children will open by the LIC waterfront in September 2014 in TF Cornerstone's new mixed-use high-rise. This space--the tenant's first in Queens--will offer preschool classes as well as after school, art, music and fitness programs.

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BY JOSH SIEGELMAN

Concept expansion in general can be stomach-clenching. It's always scary to take a concept into which you’ve put your heart and soul and expand it to a new market.

Will your new location be as successful and well-received? Or will you risk spreading yourself too thin and harming the core of your brand? These questions and concerns cause plenty of headaches in a domestic expansion but recent trends show some well-established American concepts going one step further and expanding their brands to other countries around the world.

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BY ROBERT SAMMONS

Last week we traveled along the southern portion of the Amtrak Northeast Corridor, taking in Washington, D.C.: Baltimore; Wilmington, Del.; Philadelphia and New Jersey before arriving back home in New York City.

Now it’s time to hit the rails again and finish the journey! As I stroll from my Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood to meet up with you at the Krispy Kreme in Penn Station (one benefit of this dated transit hub), I reflect on all the changes this part of Manhattan is seeing today.

While the entire island of Manhattan seems to be booming, many of the cranes that dot the landscape are working on residential buildings containing multimillion-dollar apartments.

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