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Ralph Lauren Pays $132M for SoHo Retail

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The luxury fashion brand has occupied this building's storefront since 2010. The post Ralph Lauren Pays $132M for SoHo Retail appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Exterior shot of Ralph Lauren's flagship store at 888 Madison Ave. in Manhattan. — Ralph Lauren’s Manhattan flagship store is at 888 Madison Ave. in the Upper East Side. *Image courtesy of Ralph Lauren*

Ralph Lauren has acquired its longtime SoHo retail space at 109 Prince St. for $132 million, according to public records. The luxury fashion brand purchased the property from Swiss investor Jean-Pierre Lehmann.

The transaction includes two commercial condominium units totaling 9,909 square feet: a 4,500-square-foot ground-floor space with a 2,144-square-foot basement and a second-floor unit spanning 3,265 square feet. The sale price equates to approximately $13,321 per square foot, with the ground-floor space valued at nearly $29,333 per square foot.

Ralph Lauren has occupied the storefront since 2010 under a lease agreement that was set to expire next year. The acquisition followed a competitive bidding process that also involved LVMH, which intended to relocate Tiffany & Co. from its current space at 97 Greene St.

Newmark’s Vice Chair Robert Cohen, Senior Managing Director Peter Whitenack and Co-Head Adam Spies brokered the transaction on behalf of the buyer.

Lehmann had acquired the building back in 1991 for $3 million. Originally completed in the 1880s following the designs of Jarvis Morgan Slade, the French Renaissance property was later restored in the 1990s by architecture firm Kapell & Kostow.

Situated at the intersection of Prince and Greene streets in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, the cast-iron building is within walking distance of another luxury retail property, fully occupied by Cartier, that changed hands near the end of last year.

Manhattan’s strong retail scene

Manhattan’s retail scene remains resilient, especially in the high street retail sector. According to a recent CBRE report, luxury and leisure tenants were the primary drivers of activity in the borough’s prime retail areas during the first quarter.

The average asking rent in Manhattan’s retail corridors reached $659 per square foot, down 4 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, leasing activity—including renewals and new leases—totaled more than 3.5 million square feet in the first quarter, up 14 percent from last year. SoHo stood out as the second most active neighborhood, with 11 deals totaling more than 46,000 square feet.

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