Four Seasons goin’ to Rio?
BRAZIL’S
high-end Fasano Hotel company is hot to take over the vacant, former Four Seasons restaurant at 280 Park Ave., Realty Check has learned.
Nothing’s signed and talks haven’t reached a term-sheet stage, but a source said Fasano would love to turn the lights back on.
The glamorous, 19,000square-foot venue — a revival of the original Four Seasons at the Seagram Building, which closed in 2015 — went dark when the “power lunch” mecca ignominiously closed after just 10 months.
Interest is running high in the space being offered by the tower’s owners, SL Green and Vornado. Just about ev
ery local big-name restaurateur has checked it out or will soon. But Fasano’s interest comes as a surprise.
Fasano owns flagship luxury hotels and restaurants in São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro among other Brazilian cities. The family-owned company is taking over the NoMo SoHo hotel in Manhattan after a deal to partially convert the Shore Club in South Beach to condos fell through.
Why would Fasano — a mostly Brazilian outfit founded by Italian immigrant Vittorio Fasano in 1902 — want the Four Seasons space?
Celebrated Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld is Fasano’s favorite designer. He’s credited with glamorous Fasano projects in São Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Feliz, Brazil, and in Punta del Este in Uruguay, among others.
He also happened to be the architect of the new Four Seasons at 280 Park Ave., which cost $30 million to build and open
“The Fasanos want to rescue Weinfeld’s work and take the onus off him for the Four Seasons’ failure,” an insider said. His mid-century-evocative design featured terrazzo floors, teak walls and steel fabric curtains meant to evoke the Philip Johnson original’s undulating aluminum ones.
We reported on June 11 that some investors blamed the Four Seasons’ untimely flop on a pair of private, secondfloor dining rooms meant to serve fancy weddings and the like, but which failed to draw users because of awkward floor-to-ceiling columns and other features.
The Four Seasons’ second coming several blocks south of the original opened with a torrent of publicity in August 2018.
But it was hobbled by astronomical prices and the shadow cast by co-owner Julian Niccolini’s third-degree misdemeanor assault conviction and non-criminal sexual harassment claims against him. He was ousted in December 2018 by co-owner Alex von Bidder and restaurant investors — but it was too late.
It’s unlikely that Fasano or any other operator would be able to use the Four Seasons name, as it’s still owned by von Bidder and Niccolini.
SL Green and Vornado declined to comment on Fasano. Reps for Fasano couldn’t be reached.
The long-underutilized ground-level space at 63 Madison Ave. (aka 28 E. 28th St.) has landed a huge retail tenant — Whole Foods Market, which signed for 60,000 square feet. The new gourmet emporium will have 10,000 square feet at street level plus 50,000 square feet on the second floor.
The 870,000-square-foot office tower is undergoing a major renovation by owners George Comfort & Sons, Jamestown and Loeb Partners — including a new, retail glass box on the first and second floors. George Comfort President Peter S. Duncan called Whole Foods “an ideal fit” for the property.
The landlords are also putting in a new office lobby and private outdoor spaces for high-floor tenants.
Facebook was in talks to take all the building’s office floors last year, but no lease was signed and no talks are going on. As The Post’s Lois Weiss first reported, CBS renewed on 164,000 square feet in April.
Whole Foods has added about 30 stores around the US since it was bought by Amazon in August 2017. It now has about 500 stores nationally including 14 in Manhattan, Brooklyn and nearby New Jersey. Savanna closed Monday on its planned $180 million purchase of 360 Lexington Ave. from AEW Capital Management. The deal was financed with a $126 million Barclays loan that was arranged by Eastdil Secured. Savanna plans a $20 million capital improvement program to include lobby and entrance renovation, a prebuilt program and infrastructure upgrades. The Grand Central-area building at East 40th Street is about 82 percent leased. Asking rents are in the high-$60s per square foot on lower floors and the high$70s on higher floors. Marketing and leasing will be led by a JLL team of Mitch Konsker, Barbara Winter, Ben Bass and Kip Orban.