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Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. is hoping to attract a major new department store to Manhattan by renovating an office building it owns at 60th Street and Madison Avenue.
Sources close to Metropolitan Life say the insurance company is talking to retailers, including Seattle-based Nordstrom Inc., about leasing as many as nine floors at 660 Madison Ave. Other potential tenants for the building, sources say, include Harrod's, the London-based department store, and Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, two designers who also operate stores.
"A major retail tenant is what they want," says an executive at Cross & Brown, the Met Life subsidiary that up until a month ago served as the building's managing agent.
A spokeswoman for Met Life denies any negotiations with retailers, but admits that "plans for the building include a major renovation."
Successfully transforming the largely vacant office building into a space for a department store would represent a number of milestones for Manhattan. It would mean the only department store on Madison Avenue, a retail strip now dominated by chic European boutiques.
If Nordstrom agrees to take the 660 Madison Ave. space, it would mark that retailer's first foray into...