How About A Niketown With Sweatshops Above?

The only problem with 1 Times Square is that there isn’t much in the way of natural light:

It’s the most famous building in the world on New Year’s Eve, but it’s also the emptiest — so the owners of 1 Times Square, where the ball comes down, are making a daring offer:

Rent the vacant, three-story store at the bottom for $4.5 million a year and they’ll throw in 19 floors of empty offices for free.

“You rent the retail, you basically get the building upstairs for free,” said Newmark Knight Frank real-estate broker Jeffrey Roseman, who represents the owners.

The 23-story tower, originally built for The New York Times in 1904, has not housed any office tenants for years. The base was home to a Time Warner studio store until it closed in 2001.

Ever since then, owners Jamestown and Sherwood Equities have made up to $30 million a year renting the building’s exteriors to giant electronic displays and painted ads.

Retailers have balked at the location in the middle of an island between Broadway and Seventh Avenue at 43rd Street, even as the area around it thrives.

. . .

The upper floors are small, and the interior is in disrepair. And they don’t offer much in the way of views — nearly all the windows are covered by signs.