The fashion house Armani is said to be poking around the market for space.
The company bases its Manhattan offices at 111 Eighth Avenue, an office building owned and largely occupied by Google (GOOGL), but it won’t be able to stay much longer. Google has refused to renew tenants’s leases in the nearly three million-square-foot property in order to clear a path there for its own growth.
Armani is looking for 60,000 square feet or more according to sources and has looked at buildings in the Meatpacking District, an area not far from its current home that has dramatically gained popularity as both an office and retail neighborhood.
One person familiar with the company’s search said it even has kicked around the idea of combining office and retail space in a single location. That source said Armani had considered such a transaction at 450 West 15th Street, a property commonly refered to as the Milk Building, where it would open a retail store on the ground and take office space upstairs.
A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Diego Rodino’ di Miglione, a broker at the firm who specializes in handling leasing deals with Italian companies, and Frank Coco, are handling Armani’s search for space. Neither could be reached for comment and a message to Armani’s media relations email was not immediately returned.
Armani’s lease runs out in 2014 according to the real estate database CoStar. It occupies about 40,000 square feet at 111 Eighth Avenue.
Google has moved to push several tenants from the property. The furniture company Knoll recently reached a 50,000 square foot deal to relocate from the building to 1330 Avenue of the Americas.
Google has also tussled with tenants. The company was going to offer the advertising firm Deutsch Inc. a buyout offer to leave and relocate to 11 Madison Avenue. Google later backed away from that deal and talks broke down when Deutsch began to push for more compensation from Google to leave the property.
