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Old Posted Apr 3, 2017, 6:20 AM
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Smile NEW YORK | 424 5th Ave (Lord and Taylor) | FT | FLOORS

http://nypost.com/2017/04/02/lord-ta...lagship-store/

Lord & Taylor may build a skyscraper on top of its Fifth Avenue store




By Lisa Fickenscher
April 2, 2017


Quote:
Talk about dressing up a dowdy old department store.

Lord & Taylor is weighing a plan to build a luxury tower on top of its 103-year-old flagship on Fifth Avenue, The Post has learned — even as it shells out a fortune on remodeling and expanding a half-dozen stores elsewhere.

The high-flying project could result in a steel-and-glass skyscraper that houses offices and residential units, while still preserving the original, 11-story department store and its business, according to sources.

Further details couldn’t immediately be learned, but real estate insiders note that nearby skyscrapers stretch as high as 60 stories or more.

Richard Baker — the savvy New York property tycoon behind the talks — declined to comment.

Nevertheless, insiders said it’s clear that Baker — who scooped up Saks Inc. and its swanky Fifth Avenue flagship in 2013 after acquiring Lord & Taylor in 2006 — isn’t just making shrewd Manhattan bets: He’s doubling down on the troubled department store sector, too.

Last year, Lord & Taylor sunk about $25 million into renovating its Stamford, Conn., store. It’s now pouring $35 million into expanding its location in Manhasset, LI, adding more than 36,000 square feet to its current footprint of 160,000 square feet.

Another four stores also are in various stages of upgrade, with construction slated to be completed by fall.

“These updates are creating more fluid spaces, adding brightness to the floors and more excitement for our customers,” Lord & Taylor President Liz Rodbell told The Post during a recent tour of the flagship store.

The landmark location has just completed a $12 million revamp of its fifth floor, creating what the company claims is now the largest dress floor in the world.

Lord & Taylor accounts for just a fraction of the business of its Canada-based parent Hudson’s Bay, which Baker acquired in 2008. With Hudson’s Bay recently in talks to add Neiman Marcus or even Macy’s to his mall-based empire, sources say it’s likely to become a still-smaller slice of the pie.

Nevertheless, Lord & Taylor’s Scarsdale store is among the most high-volume department stores in the country, raking in nearly $100 million in sales, according to an a source with knowledge of the store’s performance.

“It’s a misconception that all department stores stink,” said the source.

Hudson’s Bay expects to spend up to $710 million on capital investments in 2017, according to guidance it offered earlier this year. That figure includes the multiyear, $250 million renovation of the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship.

The heavy spending comes despite rampant skepticism about Baker’s retail aspirations since he first plowed into the sector with his Lord & Taylor acquisition — including from Baker himself.

At the time, Baker had said the L&T flagship was “too large at that location,” and even muttered about the possibility of redeveloping the site. Subsequently, Hudson’s Bay closed 33 L&T stores, leaving the chain with 50 locations.

The new “Dress Address” floor on Fifth Avenue is now selling dresses costing as much as $14,000 — 10 times a top price of $1,400 before the renovation.

Sales of women’s dresses at Lord & Taylor have increased nearly 10 percent over the past couple of years, the company says.

“If you don’t reinvest in your business it deteriorates, which is what we saw happen to Sears,” said Richard Baum, managing partner of Consumer Growth Partners. “We know that the experience the customer has in a store is probably more important than it ever used to be.”

The 191-year-old Lord & Taylor brand is the least exclusive of HBC’s US brands, which positions it to compete more effectively against the off price retailers, the only segment of the women’s apparel market that has been posting impressive sales gains over the past year.

“It makes sense, given the trend towards off-price” retailers like Century 21 and TJ Maxx that specialize in discounted designer duds, says retail analyst Steven Salz of M Partners.
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  #2  
Old Posted Apr 3, 2017, 5:07 PM
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Nice. There were rumors of a tower to be built above Lord & Taylor about 10 years ago, but the story seemed to disappear with the financial meltdown.

Not surprised to see a revived plan. Yet another Fifth Ave. supertall or near-supertall?
     
     
  #3  
Old Posted Apr 3, 2017, 5:12 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Nice. There were rumors of a tower to be built above Lord & Taylor about 10 years ago, but the story seemed to disappear with the financial meltdown.

Not surprised to see a revived plan. Yet another Fifth Ave. supertall or near-supertall?
Could be. The proposals are starting to line 5th Avenue. And why not? The address still has a ring to it. This would be about 4 blocks up from the Empire State. It's hard to predict which building would have the best view of it because of all the proposals.
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  #4  
Old Posted Apr 3, 2017, 5:38 PM
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Idea of proximity...


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  #5  
Old Posted Jun 19, 2017, 11:26 PM
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http://nypost.com/2017/06/19/the-own...sured-to-sell/

The owner of Saks Fifth Avenue is getting pressured to sell

By Lisa Fickenscher
June 19, 2017


Quote:
The owner of Saks Fifth Avenue is in the crosshairs of an activist investor.

Canada-based Hudson’s Bay Co., which owns the Lord & Taylor chain in addition to Saks, is getting pressured to either take itself private or sell its valuable real estate holdings, which a hedge fund claims could be worth four times the company’s current stock price.

Hudson’s Bay shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange surged nearly 15 percent to $10.17 Canadian in mid-day trades Monday.

The land holdings of Hudson’s Bay — controlled by New York real estate mogul Richard Baker — include Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship on Fifth Avenue, which “is one of the most valuable locations not only in Manhattan, but in the United States,” according to Jonathan Litt of Land & Buildings Investment Management, a hedge fund that has taken a 4.3-percent stake in Toronto-based Hudson’s Bay.

“Is the best use of this location truly a department store?” Litt added in a letter to Hudson’s Bay’s board on Monday. “What about a hotel? Or office?”

“If there is a smarter and better use of any or all of the locations, stores should be closed and redeveloped and put towards their optimal use,” Litt wrote.

Hudson’s Bay — which recently ended talks to buy Neiman Marcus — said in a statement that it is “reviewing the letter and will respond in due course.”

HBC’s real estate is four times as valuable at $35 Canadian per share than the company’s opening share price of $8.88 Canadian on Monday, according to Litt’s letter.

“This drastic public markets mis-pricing is why Hudson’s Bay should evaluate all strategic options to maximize value for shareholders, including monetization or repurposing of real estate or the company being taken private by management,” Litt wrote.

His firm also agitated for change this month at mall developer Taubman Centers, which owns the Mall at Short Hills, but lost a shareholder vote.

Saks Fifth Avenue is undergoing a $250 million, three-year renovation aimed at making its store more exciting and experiential, including restaurants and spa services.

Its Lord & Taylor flagship on Fifth Avenue, which it owns, underwent a series of smaller revamps, is considering plans to develop a rooftop space or tower on top of the store
, The Post reported in April.

Unlike most of its peers, the Canadian retailer owns most of its stores and insiders own 20 percent of the $1.2 billion company, according to Litt.

Sources close to Hudson’s Bay, however, say management and insiders own more than 50 percent of the company, which makes its unlikely that Land & Buildings will be a force of change.

Last week, the company announced a reorganization plan in which its slashing some 2,000 jobs and expecting to save $350 million.
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  #6  
Old Posted Jun 19, 2017, 11:53 PM
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Relative locations of both stores on 5th...


















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  #7  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2017, 3:18 PM
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/b...tionfront&_r=1

Lord & Taylor Building, Icon of New York Retail, to Become WeWork Headquarters

By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED and MICHAEL CORKERY
OCT. 24, 2017


Quote:
From the moment it opened its doors more than a century ago, the Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan has stood as an icon of old-school retail.

Its Italian Renaissance design, complete with grand entrance arch and copper cornice, was a 676,000-square-foot temple to commerce — and was named a city landmark a decade ago.

But after Christmas next year, less than a quarter of its space will be home to Lord & Taylor’s flagship store. Instead, the retailer said on Tuesday, the Midtown Manhattan fixture will become the new global headquarters of WeWork, the seven-year-old office space start-up. Lord & Taylor will rent the bottom floors, redesigning them into a smaller version of its department store.

In selling its flagship building to a WeWork joint venture for $850 million, Lord & Taylor and its parent, the Hudson’s Bay Company, are bowing to pressures that have increasingly weighed on the retail industry. It is an acknowledgment that even the grand physical shopping spaces of old can now fetch higher values as offices catering to millennial workers.

Across the United States, retailers are rethinking the uses of their physical spaces, as more shopping moves online and consumers prefer to spend less time in stores. Many struggling malls have converted their stores into rock-climbing gyms, movie theaters and community colleges. Other shopping centers stand mostly empty.

Over the past year, Macy’s has closed dozens of its department stores, though it has held onto its flagship one on 34th Street in Manhattan.

But selling off landmarks also comes with risks. Many old-line retailers have struggled to strike a balance between cashing out their valuable real estate and holding on to historic buildings that have come to define their brands.

It is a difficult task that Lord & Taylor is now undertaking.

Founded by the English merchant Samuel Lord in 1826, the department store was once a favored retailer of high society. When its Fifth Avenue flagship opened in February 1914, it drew 75,000 visitors, who were treated to music from a pipe organ on the seventh floor and could choose to dine in one of three restaurants on the top floor.

Quote:
One of Hudson’s Bay’s shareholders, the real estate investment firm Land and Buildings Investment Management, has pushed for the company to sell the Saks store, suggesting it might be desirable to a hotel developer or as bricks and mortar space for Amazon.

“The path to maximizing the value of Hudson’s Bay lies in its real estate, not its retail brands,” Jonathan Litt, the founder of Land and Buildings Investment Management, wrote in a letter to the board of Hudson’s Bay in June.

That pressure apparently has had an impact. Last week, the department store operator said that its chief executive, Gerald Storch, had stepped down and that he would be replaced on an interim basis by Mr. Baker.

And Tuesday’s announcement acknowledges Mr. Litt’s criticism to some extent. Beyond the Lord & Taylor building sale, Hudson’s Bay struck agreements to lease some of its other retail space to WeWork, including in Hudson’s Bay stores in Canada.

WeWork’s partner in its real estate joint venture, Rhône Capital, will also invest $500 million in Hudson’s Bay. (The joint venture, WeWork Property Advisors, will eventually take over some of that holding.)

All told, that will give Hudson’s Bay more than $1 billion in fresh capital to pay down debt and bolster its cash holdings. The $850 million purchase price for the building is about 30 percent higher than an appraisal made in July 2016.

“This partnership places H.B.C. at the forefront of dynamic trends reshaping the way current and future generations live, work and shop: the sharing economy and urban and suburban mixed-use real estate planning,” Mr. Baker said in a statement.
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  #8  
Old Posted Aug 18, 2020, 10:38 PM
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https://nypost.com/2020/08/18/amazon...ylor-building/

Amazon adding 2,000 jobs at NYC’s Lord & Taylor building





By Noah Manskar
August 18, 2020


Quote:
Amazon said it plans to house more than 2,000 employees at Manhattan’s historic Lord & Taylor building under a nationwide expansion of its corporate offices.

The Seattle-based e-tailing giant said Tuesday it will hire the workers to fill the landmark tower on Fifth Avenue over the next few years as it grows its Big Apple “tech hub” — a plan that looks like a bold, long-term bet on offices, even as the pandemic continues to force most of its employees to work from home.

Still, Amazon said it won’t start moving into the new 630,000-square-foot Midtown office until 2023.
Quote:
Amazon planned to bring thousands of staffers to the 11-story building at 424 Fifth Ave. when it acquired it for about $1.1 billion, The Post reported in March. WeWork had sought to turn the longtime home of bankrupt retailer Lord & Taylor’s flagship store into its own corporate headquarters, but scrapped the plans amid a slew of scandals that derailed its public offering.

Amazon and other tech giants have let employees work from home amid lockdowns aimed at controlling the coronavirus pandemic, which has also driven a surge in demand for online shopping that’s led Amazon’s profits to explode.

The company has said employees can work remotely until Jan. 8, but Williams told the Wall Street Journal most of its staffers will eventually return to work in person.



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/t...expansion.html

Amazon Sticks With Office Expansion Plans in New York and Elsewhere
The additional space and workers, envisioned before the pandemic, are a sign of how large tech companies continue to prosper.






By Karen Weise and Matthew Haag
Aug. 18, 2020


Quote:
The pandemic has upended many companies’ expansion plans. Not Amazon’s.

The tech giant said on Tuesday that it would hire 3,500 white-collar employees across the country, including 2,000 in New York, following through on plans it had largely put in place before the coronavirus made office towers empty as employees work from home.

The new Amazon jobs will fill a lot of office space that the company acquired before Covid-19 took hold in the United States. In early March, Amazon bought the iconic Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue from the co-working company WeWork, which was retrenching after unsustainable expansion.
Quote:
In recent years, the rapid growth of technology firms, both those from the West Coast and local start-ups, has transformed a broad swath of Manhattan into a vibrant tech hub. The biggest firms — Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google — have all expanded their footprints in the city, cementing New York City as a global tech corridor.

The companies have largely settled on the Far West Side, stretching along West 34th Street to the Hudson River and down to the Chelsea neighborhood. Collectively, they employ roughly 20,000 people in the city, and Google’s campus there has become its largest outside its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Just this year, Facebook has hired more than a thousand people in New York City, bringing its total there to more than 4,000. It has plans to hire thousands more for new offices it has recently leased at the Farley Building near Penn Station and down the street at Hudson Yards, the mini city on the Hudson River that is the country’s largest private development.
Quote:
Even after dropping its plans for a large corporate campus in Queens, Amazon has continued to invest in the city, expanding its offices in Manhattan and opening warehouses in the other boroughs.




No word on what changes will be made, though anything will be modest on the outside...

https://www.6sqft.com/first-look-at-...ylor-building/


First look at the glassy rooftop addition Bjarke Ingels is planning for the Lord & Taylor building


NOVEMBER 19, 2018
BY DEVIN GANNON


















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  #9  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2021, 6:39 PM
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CKXAqVhDiDs/

Quote:
Lord and Taylor, 5th Avenue. Views captured from the roof by one of our Project Managers. Here you can see the 2 additional floors that we added as part of the new overbuild of the now 14 floor structure.







Some older construction views....


https://www.instagram.com/p/CHYfhzFDcAn/

Quote:
Last weekends crane pick at the Lord and Taylor building for new glass, which was transported from Germany, for the 12th floor curtain wall.


















https://www.instagram.com/p/CBhJgj6D4Dk/

Quote:
Progress! Todays concrete pour of the 12th floor columns and the new 13th floor slabs which is part of the overbuild on our project at the landmarked Lord and Taylor building on 5th Avenue
















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  #10  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2022, 7:57 PM
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Back in Nov 2021.

I believe this is complete, this renovation/addition.




Credit: City Realty
     
     
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