For Shops at Columbus Circle, a Risky Retail Bet Pays Off Eight years after the glittering mall at the Time Warner Center opened, it is clear that, while it may be a stretch to say its long-term place in Manhattan is assured, the gamble of opening a five-level indoor shopping center in street-centered New York is paying off. The recent loss of an anchor tenant, the 26,000-square-foot Borders bookstore, is offset by sales of $1,600 per square foot, up from $1,000 per square foot soon after the mall opened, according to Related Companies, the developer of the shopping center and a co-owner with AREA Property Partners. And Related has already filled some of the Borders space. The sprawling underground Whole Foods and the restaurants of celebrity chefs like Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Masa Takayama on the top level were aligned to draw shoppers up and down throughout the mall, known as the Shops at Columbus Circle. But retail specialists wondered whether the center would draw residents or tourists accustomed to the high streets of Fifth and Madison Avenues and the increasingly fashionable aura of the meatpacking district. Sales per square foot on those avenues are much higher, but so are rents, said Richard B. Hodos of CBRE, who described the Time Warner mall as "one of the most productive shopping centers in the U.S." Last year some 16 million visitors passed through the center, an average of 40,000 a day. Slightly more than half of the shoppers classify themselves as local residents, and an additional 24 percent work in or near the property. The remaining shoppers are tourists, most of them from abroad. While Related would like to see even more tourists, the percentage of residents who shop there has run counter to expectations. Josh Podell, a former executive at Jones New York who runs Podell Real Estate Advisors, a consultancy, said he had been "pleasantly surprised" by the amount of activity on the upper levels. "Historically, this format doesn't work" in New York, he said. Michael Lomonaco, the chef-owner of Porter House New York, a 250-seat American steakhouse that opened on the top level in 2006 after the closing of Mr. Vongerichten's V, a French steakhouse, said he was so taken with the strength of walk-in business that he will open a 50-seat bar in the center of the fourth-floor atrium in early fall. "The old adage that New Yorkers won't go upstairs to shop has been proven wrong by Time Warner Center," said Mr. Lomonaco, who ran Windows on the World in the World Trade Center for four years before the building's destruction and spent nine years at "21" Club. A good portion of our guests are walk-in business. Related has employed a full-court-press marketing effort with a deliberate approach to leasing. The marketing group choreographs about 200 events each year at the center's shops and restaurants, and arranges for art and photography exhibits that also lure visitors. But the core of the business - attracting a steady and growing stream of free-spending shoppers - depends on carefully curating the retail environment. Paco Underhill, the chief executive of Envirosell, a retail consultancy, and the author of "The Call of the Mall" and other popular books on retailing, said "there is a big difference between operating a mall and an "all." " Unlike the "all" approach, in which developers are less constrained to be selective of their tenants, Mr. Underhill explained, "a mall requires lots of leasing decisions." Trial and error play an inevitable role. Along with the Whole Foods store, an immediate hit, the center's earliest efforts focused on high-end retailers like the shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, Tourneau watches and the accessories store J. W. Cooper. While these have proved successful, Related found that bringing in more mainstream, though still relatively upscale, brands like J. Crew, Sephora and Esprit also bolstered traffic. Other name-brand luxury and mainstream retailers included Hugo Boss, Cole-Haan and Eileen Fisher as well as Coach and Williams-Sonoma. Of course, there have been misses. There was the sprawling Borders; the 10,000-square-foot Samsung Experience, a showroom for electronics enthusiasts that offered products for demonstration but not for sale; and the European sister brands United Colors of Benetton and Sisley. These four retailers, and a few more, have departed. Related says it has 28,000 square feet of space in play and 20,000 feet of "imminent" moves. It says an additional 20,000 feet will become available over two years. The Borders bankruptcy, which left Related with a lease still five years to run, could have meant a long-running retail black hole while Related and other creditors slugged it out in bankruptcy court. "When we saw the signals that Borders was going to go out of business, we were able to get control of the space before we were thrown into the whim of the bankruptcy proceedings where landlords lose control," said R. Webber Hudson, executive vice president of Related Urban, the company's mixed-use development arm. When it got into court we already had our deal. Related declined to be more specific. The openings are also allowing Related to recalibrate its retailer roster, said Kenneth A. Himmel, the chief executive officer of Related Urban. The developer has already signed C. Wonder, a clothing and furnishings store from J. Christopher Burch, the former husband of the designer Tory Burch, into one-third of the Borders space. Mr. Himmel, who founded Related Urban in 1997 with Steven Ross, the chairman and chief executive of Related, said he expects to create some multilevel stores by combining the rest of the Borders store with the vacant Samsung space above it. Related declined to comment on a report that the Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M had agreed to lease about half of the Borders space. The vacancies include the 4,500-square-foot space that Sephora is leaving to move into the 8,700-square-foot store just vacated by Esprit on Monday, after that company closed its retail outlets nationwide. In early April, L. K. Bennett, a women's boutique based in London, will open its first New York store in a 2,100-square-foot space. J. Crew recently moved its men's line into a separate store in the center to make room for a 3,300-square-foot Crew Cuts store offering children's wear as part of the original store on the third floor. Success will bring its own challenges, said Mr. Podell, the consultant. For example, available space can run low. "We see it all the time," he said. If a tenant wants to expand, they will move. However, he added, the choices within striking distance of Time Warner Center are limited. "The only other area is Madison and Fifth," he said. They are so far way, it's not really competition.