NEW YORK — Retailer Paul Levine, owner of three Signature Cycles locations, has announced that he will close his 900-square-foot Manhattan studio on Dec. 31. Levine moved the store from its original Upper West Side location to SoHo last year when the building sold and his lease expired.
“It is no secret that the new location has been challenging for most of our clients to visit,” Levine said in an email. “The economics of doing business in Manhattan outweigh our desire to offer the best that the bicycle industry has to offer.”
Levine will shift more of his focus toward his Greenwich, Connecticut, location, which he said is thriving. With its proximity to the Metro North line, Levine also said most NYC customers should be able to reach the Greenwich store without having to drive.
“We will combine the strengths of the NY and Greenwich businesses and consolidate to the Greenwich location, resulting in extended hours, better relationships with our clients, more time to focus on bike travel — a growing area of interest with our customers — and more group rides,” he said. “I am excited by this change and the opportunities ahead and saddened at the same time by the closing of our Manhattan location.”
Levine started Signature Cycles as a fit studio in his house in Central Valley, New York, in 1999 and opened his first brick-and-mortar in Manhattan 14 years ago. The SoHo studio carries bikes from Parlee, Seven, Passoni, Guru, Independent Fabrication and Specialized and is staffed with four full-time employees. It also features an Assos store-within-a-store.
