Adding a much-needed gloss to the city’s ho-hum roster of mega-tenants, L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, has just started looking for 500,000 square feet for its New York headquarters.
The company’s current HQ is at the Emery Roth-designed 575 Fifth Avenue, but the lease expires in 2015. The 520,000-square-foot building at 47th Street, which was bought by Metlife in 2005, is also home to the Guess flagship store. L’Oreal also has office space at 565 Fifth Avenue and 435 Hudson Square.
The tenant is represented by a team led by CB Richard Ellis‘ William Hedman, who would say only that the search is very preliminary and the tenant could also choose to renew.
Most of the handful of tenants out there looking for that much space are finance types, and none of the sizeable blocks of space on the market right now would seem to suit such a glamorous tenant as L’Oreal (think 3 Columbus Circle’s small floorplates or 11 Times Square’s Eighth Avenue locale). But with its sights set as far off as 2015, there’s always the first tower at Hudson Yards. If it’s good not enough for Coach, maybe it’s good enough for Liliane Bettencourt.
