Annabel's Plans First International Private Club in Manhattan

• Caprice Holdings paid $100M for 675 Hudson Street, or $3,413 per square foot.
• Seller Aurora Capital Associates doubled its money in three years.
• Annabel's first international club, outside London, will open here.
• Landmarks approved a redesigned rooftop on July 14 after rejecting the first version in May.

Caprice Pays $100M for the Herring Building

Caprice Holdings just closed on 675 Hudson Street, the five-story former Herring Safe and Lock Company factory in the Meatpacking District, for $100 million. That works out to $3,413 per square foot on the 29,300-square-foot building, financed with a $165 million loan from HSBC. The buyer is a unit of Abu Dhabi-based DIAFA, which took control of Richard Caring's hospitality empire, Caprice and its sister brand Annabel's included, in an $1.8 billion deal this past April. Caring keeps a minority stake and stays on as executive chairman.

The seller, Robert Cayre's Aurora Capital Associates, bought the building for $50 million in 2023, or $1,706 per square foot, and walks away having doubled its money in about three years. Caprice plans to convert it into Annabel's first location outside London, with dining rooms, bars, event space and what the company describes as hospitality-focused programming.

A Redesigned Rooftop Clears Landmarks

Getting there took two trips to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. At a May 12 hearing, commissioners unanimously declined to act on BKSK Architects' original design for a curved glass rooftop enclosure, calling it oversized and out of step with the historic building below. Preservationist group Village Preservation went further, describing the addition as

"a huge, bulbous, and spaceship-like addition to one of the district's most character-defining buildings"

Regulators asked the team to rework the size, shape and setbacks. BKSK returned with a scaled-back version, and on July 14 the LPC approved it with modifications, on the condition that the applicant keep refining the massing and the glass color and transparency with commission staff before final sign-off. The broader project restores the brick facade and pressed-metal cornice, reopens historic areaways along Hudson Street and sets the rooftop volume back from the street wall.

Annabel's First Stop Outside London

Annabel's opened in a Berkeley Square basement in 1963 and built its reputation as one of London's most exclusive members' clubs before Caring bought it in 2007. Landing its first international outpost in a landmarked 1849 factory, rather than new construction, fits a pattern taking hold across the Meatpacking District. Cayre's Aurora also partnered with TPG Angelo Gordon in January to buy 410 West 13th Street, an 80,000-square-foot building three blocks away, for $71 million, or $888 per square foot, a fraction of what Caprice just paid for a branded club location. LPC staff cited its own precedents for the kind of rooftop addition Caprice is pursuing, pointing to prior approvals at 874 Washington Street and 9-19 Ninth Avenue.

Land in the district is scarce and largely landmarked, pushing developers toward exactly this move: buy the old building and add space on top of it rather than build new.

What's Next

BKSK and Caprice still owe the LPC a refined massing study and updated glass specs before construction can begin, so there's no groundbreaking date yet. Once that clears, 675 Hudson becomes the test case for whether Annabel's exclusive London formula travels, and for how much further landmarked Meatpacking real estate can stretch under a determined brand.