Cosmetics Retailer L’Occitane Moves Flagship On Fifth Avenue
Though the retail market is in a constant state of flux, Fifth Avenue is still a corridor that a certain subset of retailers feel the need to access.
L'Occitane En Provence, a French-based beauty and cosmetics chain specializing in natural ingredients, has signed a 10-year lease for a 3,378 SF flagship store at 555 Fifth Ave. ATCO Properties & Management, the 250K SF building's owner, was asking $1,100/SF in rent, which would equal $3.7M a year for L'Occitane.
The lease, first reported by Lois Weiss for the New York Post, was brokered by Ripco Real Estate on the landlord side and Thor Retail Advisors on the tenant side. L'Occitane's store will be split into 1,870 SF on the ground floor, a 1,134 SF mezzanine level and 374 SF below street level.
The retail portion of 555 Fifth Ave. is now fully leased, with L'Occitane scheduled to open in the summer, when it moves from its current Fifth Avenue location at 610 Fifth Ave.
At the corner of Fifth Avenue and 46th Street, 555 Fifth sits squarely within the Grand Central retail corridor as delineated by CBRE, south of the most expensive and prestigious stretch of Fifth Avenue that starts at 50th Street. While retail changes shape to adjust to the new, e-commerce-influenced reality, Fifth Avenue is still a bastion of classic, soft-goods stores paying high rents in more traditional leases, like L'Occitane's 10-year deal.
