If she were alive, Audrey Hepburn would have breakfast at Givenchy’s when it returns to Madison Avenue next fall.
Between the Bricks has learned the haute couture designer has inked a deal to inhabit a ritzy corner at 747 Madison next to its own former designer, Alexander McQueen.
The upcoming 2,800-square-foot storefront at the southeast corner of East 65th Street that was just leased by Givenchy is now solely owned by retail magician Jeff Sutton.
The 15-year deal in the base of the cooperative at 30 E. 65th St. had an asking rent of roughly $1,700 a foot. It also has a 1,000-square-foot mezzanine and 1,500-square-foot storage basement.
The LVMH-owned Givenchy was represented by Joel Isaacs of Isaacs and Co., who was attending the International Council of Shopping Centers event and did not return requests for comment.
Sutton, named No. 273 this year on the Forbes list of 400 richest Americans, was also unreachable, but this deal is indicative of his magical skills at minting money from storefronts.
As we first reported a year ago, Sutton and then-partner SL Green Realty Corp. purchased the co-op shares representing the former Valentino store for $66.25 million.
In June, they scooped up a second-floor unit for $2.6 million, enabling an increase in the ceiling height and leasing an in-line store to Alexander McQueen to move up from the Meatpacking District. That asking rent was $1,300 per foot, and luxury retail rents just keep rising.
The new Givenchy boutique will engulf yet another second-floor apartment being purchased by Sutton so as to create a dramatic, double-height space for its target 2014 holiday opening.
Without disclosing the tenant, SL Green on Monday said it had leased the other store to a “major European fashion house” and was selling its 33.3 percent interest in the co-op to Sutton, but also making a $30 million preferred equity investment.
The deal magically revalues the asset to $160 million — a $90 million-plus increase for the year.
Givenchy’s previous store at 710 Madison closed in 2008. Earlier this month, CEO Sebastian Suhl disclosed plans to open boutiques in Las Vegas and Miami and on “Upper Madison.”
In other SLG/Sutton news, while retaining 152,000 feet of development rights, Sutton will also spend $195 million to purchase SLG’s 50 percent of 21-29 W. 34th St., where Aldo and Geox rent and Esprit subleases from Apple.
But SLG is tossing in $100 million as a participating structured investment toward Sutton’s $327 million purchase of 530-536 Broadway from Joseph Sit t’s Thor Equities that we also revealed earlier this year.
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In some back-of-house fashion news, the PVH Corp.-owned Calvin Klein has renewed in 195,000 square feet at 205 W. 39th St., where the designer occupies the 2nd through 12th floors of the 17-story building as well as part of the ground and basement floors.
The offices include the spectacular high-ceiling “look space” on the first floor for shows and events, as well as its archives, which includes every single item ever designed.
The company had expanded by 15,000 square feet in each of the last two years and the new lease extends all the commitments to co-terminate in 2018.
PVH was represented by the team of Matthew Astrachan and Mitchell Konsker, vice chairmen of Jones Lang LaSalle, along with Steven Bauer, an executive director of Cushman & Wakefield. The building owner was represented by Howard Fiddle, vice chairman, and Evan Haskell, vice president of CBRE.
Last week, the tenant reps renewed and expanded the PVH company’s Warnaco space at 501 Seventh Ave. to 224,000 square feet; both deals were negotiated simultaneously.
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A favorite parking lot by Madison Garden will soon go the way of the dodo.
Savanna Partners has hired Robert Knakal of Massey Knakal to market the 50-by-137-foot lot on the southwest corner of Eighth Ave. and 31st Street that could morph into a big tower.
Since Savanna purchased the lot in its first fund in 2007, partner Nicholas Bienstock said there has been so much appreciation of the land value, they “can now sell it to someone who can build condos or residential rentals.”
Knakal says along with adjacent buildings that go through to 30th Street, a larger site can be assembled to support a retail and residential development of well over 200,000 square feet.
According to Knakal, this is also a “receiver site” for some of the 1.5 million square feet of transferable development rights available from the Port Authority’s Moynihan Station redevelopment.
“They would like to use them to spur development in the neighborhood,” Knakal explained. “There is a good likelihood that the size of the site can be increased.”
It could grow so much larger that Knakal swore us to secrecy on the possible skyscraping number.
As to the price of those air rights, he said, “They are in the process of trying to figure that out.” No one from the Port Authority was able to comment on the air rights.
