A Sephora store promoting skin care where an ear-piercing business once stood on St. Mark’s Place between Second and Third avenues is the latest sign of change in a place that has often seemed proudly resistant to it.

The 7,800-square-foot cosmetics shop, which opened in May, anchors 1 St. Mark’s Place, a new nine-story office project that replaced a pre-Civil War building and low-slung retail berths on the northwestern corner of a block that’s a gateway to the East Village.

As of late July, 1 St. Mark’s was 55% leased at rents of up to $200 a square foot, according to CoStar data and a source familiar with the building. This is significantly higher than average office rents in Manhattan, which have lately hovered around $78 per square foot. Two tenants who signed leases this summer for a total of 16,000 square feet are investment firms, according to a spokeswoman for GDSNY, the company handling leasing.