The French luxury group gets its hands on a retail space located on one of the most touristy avenues in the world.
An investment in the Corning Glass Building
In the game of the most prestigious retail addresses, Kering intends to strategically position its pawns. After having recently acquired real estate on avenue Montaigne and rue de Castiglione in Paris, the group announced this week that it had invested in “a prestigious asset in New York”.
Located in Manhattan at the corner of the famous Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, this building is located a few meters from the Rockefeller Center, St Patrick’s Cathedral and the Saks department store. Nicknamed the “Corning Glass Building”, it concentrates around 10,700 m2 of surface area – mainly sales spaces – on several levels. Cost of the operation: 963 million dollars, or some 885 million euros.
“With this transaction, Kering acquires exceptional retail locations on one of the most emblematic avenues in the world”indicates the group in a press release. “This investment represents a new step in Kering’s selective real estate strategy, aimed at securing key and highly desirable locations for its Maisons.”
A new retail establishment for Kering Maisons
The group, which owns the brands Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga and Boucheron, among others, has not yet detailed which brands would be installed there. Note that the Houses of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent already have a flagship store on the famous street where the group’s other brands are mostly distributed at Saks.
At a time of resumption of tourist flows but also of the increase in the consumption of luxury products at the local level, luxury houses are competing in imagination to attract customers to sales spaces with high added value: on a luxury sector which recorded a record value of 1,500 billion euros last year, sales operated directly by brands – in single-brand stores and online – should thus concentrate two-thirds of the market by 2030 by presenting themselves as real areas of expression and retail experimentation.
Not long ago, it was Louis Vuitton which formalized its move to a new address on the Champs-Elysées; rumor has it that the space could host the first hotel in the brand’s colors.
2024-01-23 07:03:18
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