Louis Vuitton is preparing to surpass Beverly Hills’ top once again.
With plans for a super oil hotel on Rodeo Drive, stymed by voters two years ago, the owner of the Paris Fashion House has returned with the proposal of a theatre flagship store designed by architect Frank Gehry, who anchors the northern edge of the famous retail corridor.
Rodeo Drive luxury stores are growing as top-notch retailers are increasingly becoming more and more spectacular shoppers. Louis Vuitton owner LVMH’s vision is one of the largest stores with a restaurant, rooftop garden and exhibition space.
The store, pending city approval, is set to open in 2029, and will travel through the block from Rodeo Drive to Beverly Drive along South Santa Monica Boulevard. It becomes one continuous structure connected throughout the alley by two pedestrian bridges and tunnels.
Louis Vuitton said the new store will have 45,000 square feet on the retail side of Rodeo Drive and an additional 55,000 square feet on the hospitality-focused side of the Beverly Drive building.
“The new location will take visitors to a complete Louis Vuitton lifestyle experience, showing off the diverse universe of our products and unique client experiences,” the company said in a statement.
The retail entrance is on Rodeo Drive, with the third floor specialising in product categories such as women’s and men’s collections, travel, watches, jewelry, beauty and scents. The rooftop level has private spaces and gardens for clients.
Pedestrians pass the building at the intersection of Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills.
(Melmercon/Los Angeles Times)
Visitors entering from Beverly Drive will find the first floor a cafe and exhibition lobby, a second floor of the exhibition space, and a rooftop with a restaurant and an outdoor terrace.
While representatives from Louis Vuitton refused to provide details about the exhibition or the building, the brand, perhaps best known for its signature monogram handbags and luggage, has given it a reputation that promotes art and culture.
In 2014, I liked Louis Vuitton in Paris in a building designed by Gehry. Fondation has organized family activities such as art exhibitions, concerts, dance performances and art classes for children.
Gehry also works with Louis Vuitton on a collection of handbags that reflect his architectural style.
Located in downtown Los Angeles, Gary designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Grand La’s mixed use complex across the street, and the nearby Colburn School Performing Arts Center.
The interior of the Beverly Hills flagship in Louis Vuitton is designed by Peter Marino, another well-known architect who designed the existing Louis Vuitton store on Rodeo Drive and the Cheval Blanc Beverly Hills Hotel, a non-existent Rodeo Drive, chosen as Louis Vuitton’s new flagship.
Based in New York, Marino was described by Architectural Digest as “a leading architect in carriage trades and an architect of fashion brands.”
Marino once said the Chebel Blanc Hotel, which was approved by the city before being rejected by voters, would improve the pedestrian experience at the northern end of Rodeo Drive’s famous shopping district.
The parcels aimed at the hotel and now Louis Vuitton are owned by LVMH, previously occupied by Brooks Brothers and Paley Media Center. Existing vacant structures are destroyed to make way for new stores.
The famous 3-block Rodeo Drive merchant is always trying to get himself to watch out and find new ways to hone the brand’s image, and Jay Looks, a real estate broker, is working on selling and leasing high-end retail properties.
“It’s always competitive to be the best among brands and they don’t sit in the spaces that make them old,” he said. “They are all constantly reinventing themselves.”
The expensive changes to their stores were “very obvious,” Looks said. “It’s almost like art. There are different top designers on the street who have made these shops spectacular after spectacular.”
Retail rents on Rodeo Drive are some of the highest in the country, but stores are also growing, the real estate broker said.
Fifteen years ago, he said the street stores were usually 25 feet wide. “Now you’re looking at a store that’s 100 feet wide,” and there may be two different landlords.
Luchs said the 50-foot lot could be “very large” and could hold 5,000 square feet of stores at each level, making it possible to have a three-storey height of 15,000 square feet in the store.
Fashion houses are also growing in New York. There, the flagship store has been replaced by a building that doubles its footprints on 57th Avenue on 57th Avenue, the architect newspaper said. The construction is hidden by a facade that looks like a huge stack of distinctive Louis Vuitton trunks.
Source link
