A Canadian Retailer Is Filling Dean & DeLuca's Iconic SoHo Space
A Canadian fashion brand is opening a new New York City store in the space Dean & DeLuca occupied in SoHo for more than three decades until it abruptly closed last year.
Vancouver-based Aritzia has inked a deal to take 30K SF at 560 Broadway, Newmark Knight Frank, which brokered the deal, announced. Aritzia has over 95 stores across North America and went public in 2016.
The Broadway store was the first Dean & DeLuca location, opened by Joel Dean and Giorgio DeLuca back in 1977. The famed luxury grocer, a New York City icon, was bought by Thai real estate tycoon Sorapoj Techakraisri through his Pace Development Corp. back in 2014. He paid $140M for the gourmet food chain and had an ambitious expansion plan that ran aground. The SoHo location was closed back in October, though signs on the door stated the closure was temporary.
All of the Dean & DeLuca locations around the world have now closed, and in March it reportedly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time it owed more than $30M in rent. Multiple landlords, including The Trump Organization, had previously moved to sue the retailer over skipped payments.
Suppliers have also said they are owed money; in 2018 one New York City bakery claimed it was owed $86K for cookies sold to the store for which it was never paid, and a patisserie claimed it was owed $70K.
NKF’s Ben Birnbaum and Ariel Schuster with Andrew Taub represented the landlord, GFP Real Estate, the Gural family's real estate business. (Jeffrey Gural is chairman emeritus of NKF.) Schuster and NKF's Jason Wecker represented Aritzia, which specializes in women's fashion.
CORRECTION, JULY 15, 5:10 P.M. ET: Newmark Knight Frank's initial announcement indicated Aritzia's Broadway lease would be for a flagship store. After this article's publication, NKF said the lease would be for a standard store, not a flagship. This story has been updated.
