Lord & Taylor's Fifth Avenue Flagship To Close

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — The iconic New York City department store Lord & Taylor will be closing its Fifth Avenue flagship store, the company that owns the business announced Tuesday.

The Lord & Taylor flagship, located in a landmarked building on Fifth Avenue between West 38th and 39th streets, will be one of ten brick-and-mortar Lord & Taylor stores to close through 2019, the Canadian-based Hudson's Bay Company announced in a quarterly report. The move to close the stores is being made to "optimize" the store's footprint to "reduce costs and improve the overall performance of this business," according to the report.

"After evaluating best use scenarios for its New York City Fifth Avenue location, the Company has decided not to maintain a presence at this location following turnover of the building to WeWork. Exiting this iconic space reflects Lord & Taylor's increasing focus on its digital opportunity and HBC's commitment to improving profitability," the Huson's Bay Company announcement reads.

Co-working company WeWork has closed a deal to purchase the Fifth Avenue building for $850 million last year. After the 2018 holiday season Lord & Taylor was expected to lease 150,000-square-feet of space in the building for a redesigned retail store. It's unclear what that 150,000-square-foot space will be used for going forward.

The Hudson's Bay Company currently operates 48 Lord & Taylor stores. The exact timeline for closing the 10 stores was not announced Tuesday. The company's CEO Helena Foulkes hinted that Lord & Taylor will place more emphasis on online business after downsizing its store footprint.

"With a new leader dedicated to evolving our experience and merchandise assortment to best meet customer expectations and shopping preferences, we will take advantage of having a smaller footprint to rethink the model and focus on our digital opportunities," Foulkes said in a statement. "The Lord & Taylor flagship on Walmart.com, which launched last week, is a great example of this and represents how we are thinking about the entire business."

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