Daily Front Row

2012 January 31

The CFDA Is Bound For Bleecker Street

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The CFDA's Steven Kolb and Diane von Furstenberg
Patrick McMullan View Gallery

(NEW YORK) The CFDA is bidding adieu to the Garment District in favor of new digs on Bleecker Street, after a decade and a half at its 1412 Broadway location. The upcoming offices, situated in Noho's Bayard-Condict Building between Broadway and Lafayette Street, clock in at 9,310 square feet, compared to the current 4,200 square foot spread. 

But Steven Kolb, CEO of the CFDA, is defending the move, citing that the organization has physically grown a bit too big for its britches: "Right now, if you look around, we are busting out of the seams," Kolb told WWD. Heading south was a decision the CFDA reached after an extensive but ultimately fruitless quest—one that was "sensitive to neighborhoods," according to Kolb—for new HQ nearby its existing space on Broadway between 39th and 40th Streets.

As with many shuffles, the CFDA's impending move is a matter of the right place at the right time—and the right price. "We needed a very large space so we can have board meetings and clinics there," said Diane von Furstenberg, current president of the CFDA. "We found a great space with a great deal, and that's that."

The CFDA has long supported the industrious stretch of NYC through initiatives like its Fashion Incubator program, plus the two-part Made In Midtown study and Making Midtown programming, both in conjunction with the Design Trust for Public Space. Word of the upcoming CFDA relocation has elicited some industry disgruntlement thus far from the likes of Yeohlee Teng, Nanette Lepore and her husband, Bob Savage, a proponent of the Save the Garment Center campaign.

The fresh space will be tricked out by Design Within Reach and Sayigh+Duman, a small NYC-based boutique architecture firm. 
ALEXANDRA ILYASHOV