Lord & Taylor selling flagship to WeWork

Lord & Taylor’s flagship NEW YORK — store in Manhattan, known for its holiday displays along Fifth Avenue, is being sold to the office space sharing company WeWork.

The nearly 100-year-old building will be converted to WeWork headquarters, with less than a quarter of the space remaining for a Lord & Taylor store. Right now, 10 of the building’s 11 floors are devoted to retail.

WeWork attracts millennials who are looking to share office space, a consumer segment that Lord & Taylor owner Hudson’s Bay and other department stores want to attract. So store executives expect the stores to benefit from WeWork members going in and out of the building, and hopes they’ll be shopping.

“This is a sign of the future,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail group at Douglass Elliman Real Estate. She predicted that other department stores will likely lease some of their space to corporate groups that cater to millennials. “They’re building their own traffic generators.”

Lord & Taylor will keep the whole building with its usual operations through next year’s holiday season.

Hudson’s Bay Co., which owns Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue and Canada’s Hudson’s Bay, said in June it was cutting 2,000 jobs in North America as it shaves costs and tries to adjust to changes in how people shop.

The $850 million sale is part of a plan by Hudson’s Bay to pare down debt and reinvigorate sales. Company officials declined to say what the redesigned Lord & Taylor store of about 150,000 square feet will look like.