Uniqlo To Pay $350M For Portion Of Its Fifth Avenue Flagship
Uniqlo has joined the wave of international retailers paying eye-watering prices to own their own real estate on Fifth Avenue.
The Japanese retailer has struck a deal to pay $350M for just over 17K SF of its Fifth Avenue flagship, with a deal brewing for the retailer to buy the rest of its nearly 100K SF location, according to a release from Vornado Realty Trust.
Uniqlo is buying the space from a joint venture of Vornado and Crown Acquisitions, which own the retail condominium at 666 Fifth Ave.
Brookfield Asset Management controls the 1.5M SF office portion of the building, which was repositioned and rebranded to 660 Fifth Ave. The rest of Uniqlo's 91K SF is owned by Brookfield, and Vornado's release says Uniqlo has a separate deal in place to buy the remainder of its store.
Brookfield owns the second and third floors of Uniqlo's space, and a source familiar with the negotiations said the Canadian asset management giant agreed to sell after Uniqlo approached the landlords about buying its store.
The closings of those deals are expected to happen concurrently in 2025, according to the release, after which Uniqlo would own a newly carved-out condo in the tower.
The joint venture, in which Vornado owns a 52% stake, will continue to own approximately 24K SF of the building, which houses Abercrombie & Fitch and Tissot stores. The entire retail portion has 125 feet of frontage on Fifth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd streets.
All of the estimated $340M of net proceeds are expected to be used to repay Vornado’s $390M of preferred equity on the asset, according to the release.
Eastdil Secured advised Vornado on the deal. A Brookfield spokesperson declined to comment.
The Japanese retailer has leased the store since 2010, when it signed a 15-year, $300M lease, setting a record at the time. Now, as the lease approaches its expiration, it is seeking to acquire the real estate at the corner of 53rd Street.
The store is the highest-selling among Uniqlo's 2,400-store portfolio, according to a report by its parent company.
Since acquiring the leasehold, Brookfield has invested $400M to upgrade the property, which gained notoriety as a debt albatross for its previous owner, Kushner Cos.
In 2007, then-CEO Jared Kushner spent a whopping $1.8B on the tower, among the largest single-asset real estate deals in U.S. history at the time. But the building struggled to compete with newer postrecession office product, and the $1.4B debt burden drew more scrutiny when Kushner became a senior adviser in the White House.
The mortgage was set to mature in 2019, but Brookfield alleviated those pressures when it paid $1.1B in cash upfront for a 99-year ground lease to take over the 39-story tower.
Uniqlo's purchase continues the trend of global retailers paying extravagant sums to own a slice of Fifth Avenue. Kering, the parent company of Gucci and Balenciaga, dropped $963M on a 115K SF retail condo at 717 Fifth Ave. in January, and Prada spent $835M in December on 720 and 724 Fifth.
Vornado signaled it might sell some of its ample retail space on Fifth Avenue on its earnings call in May when Chief Financial Officer Michael Franco said the REIT could be “in the mix” to sell some properties while “the animal spirits are alive and well amongst retailers.”
