Former Garden City Lord & Taylor Converts To Office Space

GARDEN CITY, NY – The former Lord & Taylor is under reconstruction, transforming from a department store to an office building, with a Wall Street firm already committed to set up shop.

Morgan Stanley will lease 62,000 square feet of office space on the top floor of the renovated building at 1200 Franklin Ave., according to Long Island Business News.

The move, expected during the fourth quarter of 2022, will consolidate a collective 75,000 square feet the investment banking and financial services firm has leased in offices at 855 Franklin Ave. and 1300 Franklin Ave. in Garden City, LIBN reports.

Melissa Coley, a spokeswoman for CBRE, the brokerage marketing the new office building, declined to comment on the ongoing reconstruction project and prospective tenants.

CBRE’s website lists 155,471 square feet of total leasable space available at the property, and highlights the addition of windows, a spacious internal staircase and a central atrium and skylights.

Lord & Taylor’s parent company Le Tote filed for bankruptcy in August 2020 and closed all of the 38 department stores, including four on Long Island in Garden City, Bay Shore, Huntington at Walt Whitman Shops, and Manhasset. The latter store, at 1440 Northern Blvd., is slated to be converted into WeWork, a membership-based co-working space, Newsday reported.

While Le Tote bought the department store’s brand and intellectual property from Hudson’s Bay Co. for $75 million in 2019, Hudson’s Bay retained virtually all of the Lord & Taylor’s real estate, Newsday reported.