Garmany making another move on Broad St.
GLORIA STRAVELLI The vacant building at 117 Broad St. in Red Bank, formerly occupied by The Bon-Ton, will be the new home of high-end clothier Garmany.
Men’s clothing retailer moving into building last occupied by The Bon-Ton
By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
Ending weeks of speculation, clothier Laureano Garmany confirmed this week that he is the contract purchaser of the vacant Bon-Ton building at 117 Broad St. in downtown Red Bank.
One of the most impressive success stories in the downtown, the high-end men’s store will be moved into the building by the fall of 2004, and a floor of women’s fashions and accessories will be added.
Closing on the circa-1947 building, which has a purchase price of $4.5 million, will take place within about 60 days, said Garmany.
Now that the lease is signed, Garmany is seeking a tenant for the polished, two-story, red brick building, which has 12,000 square feet of retail space and its own parking lot at 105 Broad St., now occupied by Garmany the Men’s Store.
The identity of the new lessee is generating as much buzz as the purchase.
Almost everyone has heard (and repeated) the rumor that the new tenant will be bauble blueblood Tiffany & Co.
But Garmany said it ain’t necessarily so.
"Tiffany would be my ideal tenant," he said, "but there’s no contract. I’m talking to potential tenants right now, writing letters to a few I think will be fantastic. I’m looking for something unusual that the area doesn’t have."
Garmany is certain to be selective; it took him four years before he settled on Coco Pari and Wisteria as the right tenants for his original store at 17 Broad St.
"I could have rented that store many times, but I waited for the right tenant, and they’ve been very successful," he noted.
The former Bon-Ton and Steinbach building represents a large chunk of the business district’s south end, and its fate was of concern throughout the downtown.
RiverCenter chairman Chris Cole called Garmany’s purchase of the building "a terrific boost to the downtown retail core and one that is going to be a huge boost to the area."
"I like it because Garmany is a regional tenant — he has a store in Summit — and it’s another way to make Red Bank a unique destination," Cole said.
"You can’t find a Garmany on every corner; you have to come to Red Bank," he added.
Vacant since The Bon-Ton closed in January, the two-story, 39,000-square-foot building with a private parking lot at 105 Broad St. was offered for lease by David Cronheim & Co., commercial and residential property management company.
The building, assessed at $2.4 million, is owned by Cronheim Management Services, a general partnership.
Chatham-based Cronheim was looking for single or multiple tenants for the building but was persuaded to sell the property instead.
According to Garmany, plans were under way to add a third floor to the present location to accommodate a women’s line when The Bon-Ton building came on the market.
"When we found out about The Bon-Ton, we put everything on hold and persuaded Cronheim to sell to us," said the Colts Neck resident.
"Women have been asking. They see the service, how we treat their husbands. Ninety percent of the wives said they felt left out when their husbands were shopping," he explained. "They’d have to go to New York or Short Hills. They wanted to shop together. They have been asking us to do this for the last 10 years."
Garmany is president and his son Johnell is vice president of the men’s store, which is known for high-end, famous-name designer men’s fashions, mostly from Italy and France, including formalwear, casual wear, outerwear, footwear, hats, sunglasses and accessories.
Renovations to the new space, which has a dated exterior and awkward interior configuration, will be extensive, both inside and out, he said, to bring it to the level of the present building, located just across Linden Place.
The Tricarico Group, Wayne, will redesign the building with 20,000 square feet for men’s wear on the first level and a comparable space for women’s wear on the floor above.
Hailing from a family of entrepreneurs, Garmany had opened his first clothing store in New York by age 20 and opened two others in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
By 1977, his retail strategy began to evolve toward designer fashions.
"In the first year, it wasn’t so high-end," he said of his Brooklyn operation, "but by the second year, I was carrying Pierre Cardin, Yves St. Laurent, all the big names in fashion in the ’70s."
When he moved to Holmdel with his wife and two children in 1984, Garmany found his sartorial style was a topic of conversation.
"Whenever we got together with friends, people would always ask, ‘Where do you buy these clothes?’ and I used to say, ‘I’m in the business.’ They said I should look into opening a store in this area."
Garmany took the cue and did his homework, assaying men’s stores in the area, and found that the type of men’s wear he sold wasn’t represented.
"What was missing was Italian fashion," he explained. "In my opinion, when it comes to clothing, nobody comes close. Italy has the quality and craftsmanship."
Garmany was in negotiations for a space in The Grove in Shrewsbury in 1989 when he drove through Red Bank and noticed that the Clayton and McGee building at 17 Broad St. was for sale .
"I said to my wife, ‘I’m going to buy this building,’" he recounted, "and I’m going to be successful in this town. I just knew it."
When Roots men’s store closed, Garmany bought the building at 105 Broad St. and moved his thriving business there in 1997.
At Garmany, men can shop for clothes in a range beginning at around $800 for a Hugo Boss suit up to $6,000 for an Italian-made Kiton suit. Neckties range from $95 to $300.
The men’s store has its own staff of tailors with many years of training in their craft.
In addition to fitting ready-to-wear, Garmany tailors take measurements for custom suits made in Italy and put the finishing touches on when the suit is received three or four weeks later.
In addition to high-quality clothing, what sets his men’s store apart from competitors like Barney’s and Bergdorf Goodman in New York is the level of service lavished on customers, Garmany noted.
A coffee bar and shoe-shine service are all part of the emphasis on service which attracts customers from a wide area, including New York.
"Service to us is the No. 1 thing," Garmany said. "What good is it to have all these beautiful name brands if the service and the quality of alterations don’t match that?
"When a man comes in here, he doesn’t have to know anything about fashion," he added. "We consider ourselves clothing consultants, and every one of my people has been trained to be fashion-wise. The whole logic here is that sometimes people don’t know what to wear. We have all the answers. We will coordinate what they wear for them. Our competition doesn’t have the service. We take the time that these other stores don’t.
"When you pay the kind of money for the name brands we carry," Garmany said, "you should have all those bells and whistles."