TIMES SQUARE — Less than two days remain for shoppers to snap up merchandise and ride the Ferris wheel at the massive Times Square Toys R Us.
The retailer’s 110,000-square-foot flagship store at Broadway and West 44th Street will close on Wednesday, a spokeswoman confirmed.
“We decided not to exercise our option to renew the lease for this location, which expires in January… providing the opportunity to realize meaningful rent savings,” Toys R Us corporate communications director Elizabeth Gaerlan said in an email.
Gaerlan said the company is “actively searching” for a new Manhattan location.
Rumors that the store might close began circulating in March, when the Commercial Observer reported the retailer would not be renewing its lease.
At that time, Cushman & Wakefield realtor Brad Mendelson told DNAinfo if the retailer chose to part ways with the location, the Times Square space would be divided and leased out by floor. Asking rent for ground floor was $2,500 per square foot, $350 per square foot for the second level and $150 per square foot rent for the lower level.
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday regarding any new retailer or retailers eyeing the space.
The Times Square outpost met the same fate that Toys R Us-owned FAO Schwarz did in July, when the toy store’s Fifth Avenue store closed its doors amid skyrocketing operating costs in the area.
The flagship store opened in November 2001 featuring four levels, a 60-foot Ferris wheel and a 20-foot “animatronic” T-rex, New York YIMBY reported.
Gaerlan said the company is "still in the process of identifying any future use" of the Ferris wheel.
