Dive Brief:

• Google is walking back plans to open its first retail store in New York City and is trying to sublease the space it had chosen in the city’s fashion-centric SoHo neighborhood, Crain’s New York reports.

• In addition to signing a lease, the company had already renovated the 5,442-square-foot space to the tune of $6 million.

• The store would have been the company’s largest retail space to date; it operates stores-within-stores at Best Buy, a few pop-ups, and a full retail store in London. And it recently launched its retail website. 

Dive Insight:

There’s not a lot of information about why Google is abandoning its New York retail effort after investing so much in it. The location on Greene Street was once a bit out of the way, but has seen more high-end stores move in.

The news comes as Amazon opened a bookstore in Seattle—its first physical store (though not its first physical retail outpost)—and Microsoft its first New York City store, on Fifth Avenue. And, of course, Apple’s stores continue to open worldwide, with dazzling architectural updates and impressive sales records.

But then, Microsoft and Apple, unlike Google or even Amazon, appear to possess a strong dedication to their physical products.