Fashion Retailer Advanced Contemporary To Set Up Shop at 50 Ninth Avenue

A new fashion retailer led by Jen Rubio, co-founder and former CEO of the online luggage company Away, has leased 10,500 square feet for a retail outlet at 50 Ninth Avenue in the heart of the Meatpacking District, along with the entire 5,391-square-foot seventh floor for offices. 

Sources tell Commercial Observer that the rent for the new fashion concept, Advanced Contemporary, will be nearly $6 million per year at the redeveloped property. 

Howard Hersch, Jared Solomon, Brett Harvey and Jennifer Schreiber of Newmark represent building owner Tavros for the office floors, which have asking rents ranging from $150 to $225 per foot. Odyssey Retail Advisors and Good Space NYC represent the landlord for retail leases at the project. Isabel Solmonson Cohen at Runyon New York represented Rubio.

The project has recently undergone a significant and unique renovation, with nine row houses that wrap around the northeast corner of West 14th Street and Ninth Avenue surrounding a newly constructed 57,000-square-foot office building.

The row houses, which have been in place since 1842, host the project’s retail outlets, including celebrity hot spot Delilah, which signed on for 10,000 square feet on the project’s north end in June 2024.

Other tenants in the office portion include a Rolls-Royce experience center on the eighth floor and Sole Source Capital on the fifth floor.

In addition to her work with Away, Rubio was behind the social media rollout of trendy eyeglass firm Warby Parker before becoming global innovation director of AllSaints. In May 2025, Rubio stepped aside from her CEO duties to become executive chair of Away.

Rubio, who was born in the Philippines, is married to Stewart Butterfield, a Canadian-born billionaire and co-founder of Flickr and Slack, the latter of which he sold to Salesforce in 2021 for $27.7 billion.  

Tavros declined comment, while the brokerages and Rubio did not respond to requests for comment.