Just wild about Harrys of London on Park Avenue
WHO knows? Maybe Charles S. Cohen will buy Harrods next and move it to Manhattan.
The landlord-developer is bringing a second posh British fashion retailer to the corner of Park Avenue and 57th Street — Harrys of London, a contemporary men’s footwear and accessories label. And, as he did recently with Savile Row tailor Richard James, fashion-loving Cohen bought the brand first.
Harrys of London will open this fall in 1,100 square feet on the Park Avenue side of the Ritz Tower, the elegant prewar apartment building at 465 Park Ave., where Cohen owns the retail space. News of the deal comes just weeks after Cohen bought the controlling interest in Harrys from a Boston private equity firm.
Founded in 2008, Harrys of London has stores in London’s Burlington Arcade as well as in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Although its wares are sold at Barneys New York and a few other Big Apple retailers, the Park Avenue corner will be its first freestanding US store.
As he did at Richard James, Cohen has taken the title of chairman at Harrys. The brand’s CEO, Steven Newey, will remain in his position and run the company on a day-to-day basis.
“It’s a brand I’ve long supported and admired,” Cohen said. “Its expansion into Manhattan, as far as I’m concerned, has been long overdue.”
Cohen might not be giving a discount to what’s now his own company: The asking rent on the Ritz space was $800 a square foot.
His Richard James and Harrys of London purchases might not be on the scale of a possible Related Companies investment in struggling Neiman Marcus — a potential strategy to make sure the luxury department store remains as Related’s 250,000-squarefoot retail anchor at Hudson Yards, as The Post’s Lisa
Fickenscher reported last week. (Related CEO Stephen
M. Ross said “no” when later asked by Fox News if Related wanted to “acquire” Neiman Marcus.)
But Cohen’s London purchases are a response to the same overall retail malaise that’s given New York landlords the jitters. He’d struggled for years to get the lights turned back on at the precious southeast corner of Park Avenue and East 57th Street, which went dark after Borders Books closed in 2011.
Meanwhile, Cohen plans to covert 35,000 square feet of retail space on the Ritz Tower’s East 57th Street side for medical use. Cohen recently brought Saks Off Fifth to 135 E. 57th St., the office tower he owns at the block’s Lexington Avenue end.
The office-leasing streak goes on at William Kaufman Organization’s 437 Madison Ave. Three firms have signed new leases at the 850,000square-foot tower.
Munich American Reassurance Co. has signed for 18,650 square feet, moving from 1177 Sixth Ave. Eos Management took 9,576 square feet. And law firm Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads is expanding by 7,458 square feet, bringing its total in the building to 35,755 square feet.
The building recently underwent $60 million in capital upgrades.