Van Cleef & Arpels Leasing Newly Built Gold Coast Retail

A mystery surrounding Oak Street’s newest luxury storefront is solved, and the answer lies just one door away.

Van Cleef & Arpels is set to move its Chicago flagship into the planned redevelopment at 67 East Oak Street, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The French jewelry house will lease about 3,500 square feet in the building, which is set to be built out to accommodate the brand’s high-end aesthetic.

The Van Cleef move underscores a trend across the world’s premier shopping strips such as Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills — where Hermès recently spent a record $400 million on property — and Bond Street in London. Luxury brands want to stand out as much as possible by exercising more control over their own real estate, people familiar with the Oak Street deal said.

By securing its own building where it will be the largest and most noticeable tenant, Van Cleef is separating from its current space at 65 East Oak Street, between Chanel and Moncler, which collectively take up a larger portion of the adjacent building than Van Cleef.

The move marks a high-stakes game of musical chairs — and an expansion for Van Cleef — on the Gold Coast’s most exclusive shopping corridor. Van Cleef is relocating from a property as its German institutional landlord Union Investment has been shopping it for sale.

Union hired Newmark in October to list the property, six years after acquiring it for a staggering $120 million in 2019. That pre-pandemic deal, which remains the largest price per square foot ever paid for a Chicago retail property at over $4,100, set a high bar for Oak Street. However, with one of the building’s tenants headed next door, the valuation of the property could face fresh scrutiny as it hits the market.

A spokesperson for Van Cleef said it didn’t have any additional information Thursday but added, “We can be in touch closer to the opening.” Union Investment said it wouldn’t comment on “market rumors.”

The redevelopment at 67 East Oak represents a modern evolution for the block. The new two-story structure will replace a five-story Victorian-era building, continuing a movement toward sleek, glass-heavy modernist designs that are redefining the Gold Coast’s aesthetic. By securing a tenant as prestigious as Van Cleef & Arpels, the developers of the building have validated demand for purpose-built, boutique luxury spaces even as the broader retail market faces some headwinds, especially on the Magnificent Mile where vacancy remains over 25 percent.

A shroud of uncertainty still surrounds the identity of Van Cleef’s next landlord. The property at 67 East Oak was transferred about a year ago by a trust that obscured its ownership to an LLC managed by real estate attorneys Ellen and Laura Distelheim, who appear to be based in Highland Park. The LLC in September took out a $9.1 million construction mortgage against the property from Wintrust.

The Distelheims didn’t return requests for comment. An architect with Myefski Architects who’s working on the design for the building at 67 East Oak Street declined to comment, and a consultant on the project with Chicago-based Malet Realty didn’t return a request for comment.

The jeweler’s pending move has sparked speculation that one of Union Investment’s current tenants at 65 East Oak, namely Chanel, could take the opportunity to expand into the Van Cleef space once it’s vacated. The jeweler’s new space should be operationally ready within 18 months to two years, a person familiar with the property said.

A Savills team led by Todd Siegel represented the landlord in negotiating the lease at 67 East Oak, and declined to comment. A representative of Odyssey Retail Advisors, a brokerage that works with Van Cleef parent company Richemont, declined to comment.

While some Chicago submarkets have struggled with retail vacancies, the Gold Coast’s luxury market has remained a bastion of resilience. Oak Street continues to attract global brands seeking a presence in the Midwest’s premier shopping district.

Recent transactions backing that claim include the $17 million sale in late 2024 of the nearby property at 41 East Oak Street, which Bottega Veneta leases, to the Maramotti family that owns Max Mara. Furthermore, Burdeen’s Jewelry also planted its flag on Oak Street in recent years, with a lease spanning two stories in the 10,000-square-foot former Northern Trust building at 120 East Oak Street. Landlord L3 Capital has also sought to sell the property over the past year without yet finding a buyer.