Elizabeth Arden spa to move to 655 Fifth Avenue, sources say

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Source said Elizabeth Arden’s famed Red Door Spa is moving to the Ferragamo building at 655 Fifth Avenue

Elizabeth Arden’s famed Red Door Spa, located for 81 years at 689-691 Fifth
Avenue is moving two blocks south to a new location, at the Ferragamo building
at 655 Fifth Avenue, several sources in the retail real estate industry said.

The Elizabeth Arden spa, which occupies multiple levels at Vornado Realty
Trust’s landmarked building at 689-691 Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 54th Street,
will lease the eighth-floor space at Madison Capital’s 655 Fifth Avenue, at the
corner of 52nd Street, the sources said.

CoStar figures show the spa occupies the mezzanine, and floors seven through
10, for a total of 28,632 square feet at its current location. The ground floor is used for retail sales, while
the upper floors are for the spa services.

The Red Door Spa will take space formerly occupied by Spa Chakra, which
leased the 22,000-square-foot space on the eighth floor and roof of 655 Fifth
Avenue, but filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and subsequently closed.

Elizabeth Arden, with its eponymous red door, has been at the address 691 Fifth
Avenue since 1930, and has been located on Fifth Avenue since 1910.

Vornado’s property, known as the Elizabeth Arden Building, is closely associated
with the spa owner. Its name is written prominently above the second floor
windows on the Fifth Avenue frontage. In a bid to remain at the building, sources
said the spa has been in talks with Vornado to keep the 1,400-square-foot
ground-floor retail space which Vornado listed earlier this month as available for
rent on the website of leasing data firm CoStar Group.

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The Real Deal reported in April that Vornado 691-fifth-avenue-according-to-sources”>was looking to get as much as
$3,000 per square foot for the ground-floor space.

Retail broker Faith Hope Consolo said the former Spa Chakra location was a
modern facility that would be an upgrade from Elizabeth Arden’s current location.

“They will have the Fifth Avenue address and a state-of-the-art facility that brings
them forward,” said Consolo, who was not involved with the new lease.

Cornelia Day Spa opened in the top-floor space in 2005, but faced financial
challenges and in early 2009 was acquired by Spa Chakra. Spa Chakra, a
national spa company that had as many as 170 employees, suffered in the
recession, and was forced into bankruptcy in 2009. It closed in 2010.

Bankruptcy records show that Spa Chakra signed a lease from 2009 to 2018 in
which the rent would rise from $17,541 per month to $114,556 per month. An
attorney representing Spa Chakra did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.

Vornado and Madison Capital declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Red Door Spa declined to discuss the matter and referred
questions to Elizabeth Arden, which did not respond to a request for comment.