Men’s Dress Shirtmaker Signs Brookfield Place Lease As Complex Officially Opens

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$79 men's shirts from Kamakura Shirts (Kamakura Shirts' website).
$79 shirts from Kamakura Shirts (company website).

Kamakura Shirts signed a lease at Brookfield (BN) Place yesterday, the day before the Lower Manhattan complex officially opened.

The Japanese men’s dress shirt company’s 699-square-foot space is across the hall from Equinox (opened last month) and sandwiched between a women’s fashion brand that hasn’t been announced and Time Inc.‘s lobby, Edward Hogan, the national director of retail leasing for Brookfield Office Properties, told Commercial Observer during a tour of the partially complete complex yesterday. The lease is for 10 years, he said, noting that asking rents are currently $400 to $500 per square foot. Kamakura Shirts will open in about three months. Mr. Hogan negotiated the deal for Brookfield, along with Stephen Plourde of The McDevitt Company. Craig Slosberg of JLL represented the tenant. 

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Workers finish setting up Omega in Brookfield Place yesterday in preparation for today's store opening (Photo: Lauren Elkies Schram).
Workers finish setting up Omega in Brookfield Place yesterday in preparation for today’s store opening (Photo: Lauren Elkies Schram).

While businessmen and executives love the shop at 400 Madison Avenue between East 47th and East 48th Streets, “Madison Avenue is not a quintessential shopping district,” Yoshio Sadasue, the chairman of Kamakura, said via a translator. “I believe that Brookfield Place is a first-class mall, a rare place where one can shop and relax, promising an elegant and aspirational status for the future. It is an honor that a Japanese retailer such as Kamakura Shirts was invited to be a part of Brookfield Place.”

The Madison Avenue store is the only Kamakura Shirts outside of Japan. The company was founded in 1993 by Mr. Sadasue and his wife Tamiko with a small luxury shirt store in Kamakura, Japan.

“We will be selling unbelievably high quality shirts that are made in Japan yet affordable,” Mr. Sadasue said. “These shirts will be accompanied in store by the spirit of ‘omontenashi,’ that is the customer service of the greatest care.” Most shirts sell for $79.

Le District workers were busy yesterday filling the shelves yesterday (Photo: Lauren Elkies Schram).
People were scurrying around Le District yesterday, filling the shelves, completing construction and conducting trainings (Photo: Lauren Elkies Schram).

Kamakura signed the dotted line yesterday morning as retailers like Omega watch manufacturer and Bonobos menswear online retailer put the finishing touches on their stores in preparation for today’s grand opening of Brookfield Place at 250 Vesey Street. Tonight is the unveiling of Le District. Restaurateur Peter Poulakakos of HPH Hospitality Group, Le District’s owner, said the Café District will open in full tomorrow and the whole 30,000-square-foot French-themed market and 520-seat dining zone will be open by next Wednesday.

Not all of the stores at Brookfield Place, a four-building, 8.5-million-square-foot complex on the Hudson River, open today. Saks Fifth Avenue, for example, will be opening its doors next February, and the 35,000-square-foot, 600-seat food hall Hudson Eats, opened last year.

There are three spaces still available for lease at Brookfield Place: 5,000 square feet for a luxe retailer, 2,300 square feet for a contemporary fashion retailer and 10,000 square feet for a steakhouse, Mr. Hogan said.