Eyewear brand Gentle Monster moves into the Puck Building – on former REI space
The South Korean eyewear label is leasing about 28,500 square feet in a historic building in Manhattan's SoHo. The brand is known for stores that resemble art galleries.
Archive image · Photo: Kidfly182 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster has signed a lease for 28,500 square feet in the Puck Building at 295 Lafayette Street in New York. The SoHo building is owned by Kushner Companies. Gentle Monster is taking part of the space formerly occupied by outdoor retailer REI, whose flagship there closed in July; Italian restaurant Torrisi will take the remainder for an expansion.
The brand's stores are known for gallery-like design and surreal art installations; at its existing SoHo store at 70 Wooster Street, large hyper-realistic robotic faces greet shoppers. According to Commercial Observer, it is unclear whether Gentle Monster will leave that location, and no opening date has been disclosed. A source familiar with the deal said the lease runs for more than ten years.
'We are incredibly excited to welcome Gentle Monster to the Puck Building,' said Nicole Kushner Meyer, president of Kushner Companies. The building, she said, is a place 'where heritage, modernism and culture come together'.