Luxury fashion designer Tom Ford is taking the space at Thor Equities’ 680 Madison Avenue that a Qatari fashion brand bailed on last year.
Ford is taking 12,300 square feet on the corner of East 61st Street across from Barney’s, the New York Post reported. He’ll join a “Who’s Who” of chichi brands in the area, including Brioni, Brunello Cucinelli, and the Links Club.
Joe Sitt’s Thor [TRDataCustom] bought the retail property at the base of Extell Development’s luxury residential condominium for $277 million in 2013 and pushed up ground-floor asking rents to near the $2,500-per-square-foot mark. This time around, the asking rent for the ground-floor space was $2,000 per square foot.
The Qatari luxury retailer signed a lease for 6,200 square feet but backed out of the deal before ever taking the space, as The Real Deal reported last March.
Sitt has been drawing down on Qela’s security deposit since Thor terminated the lease in December.
Tom Ford’s current 14,000-square-foot store at 845 Madison Avenue is now on the market.
JLL’s Bob Gibson represented Tom Ford in the deal with Thor, which covers 3,300 square feet on the ground and 9,000 square feet on the second floor. [NYP] – Rich Bockmann