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Hospitality mogul Sam Nazarian taking a bite out of Manhattan West
SBE Entertainment Group rumored to be considering eatery incubator for expanding empire
Manhattan’s Far West Side is about to get some serious foodie street cred.
Hospitality mogul Sam Nazarian is in talks to open a large space at Manhattan West as his SBE Entertainment Group embarks on a global restaurant and hotel expansion, sources told The Real Deal.
SBE Entertainment plans to lease about 40,000 square feet at Brookfield Office Properties’ massive live-work-play complex. One source said Nazarian is planning some kind of culinary incubator to test different concepts for the company’s expansion plans.
Representatives for SBE Entertainment did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesperson for Brookfield declined.
Nazarian, whose hospitality empire includes the Morgans Hotel Group and the Los Angeles–based chain Umami Burger, is in the midst of an international expansion into markets in the Middle East and Latin America.
Los Angeles-based SBE announced it had a pipeline of 50 venues in the pipeline worldwide last fall when Accor Hotels struck a deal to buy a 50 percent stake in the company. Over the summer, SBE announced that it expanded its Los Angeles office with a new outpost in Beverly Hills to help accommodate its ambitious growth plans.
In New York, the company moved its headquarters to 131 Spring Street in Soho last fall.
SBE’s holdings in New York City include the Hudson and Mondrian hotels, the Cleo Mediterranean restaurant on Park Avenue South and the Forty Four Restaurant at the Royalton Hotel in Midtown.
The company also operates the lone remaining Umami Burger outpost in New York at Brookfield Place in the Financial District. The trendy burger chain at one point had four outposts in the city but trimmed that down to just one last year.
Umami is reportedly eyeing a Big Apple comeback, however, with a new concept called Umami Prime set to open inside the Le Meridien hotel off Central Park in the spring.
Brookfield, meanwhile, signed the law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore earlier this month to roughly 480,000 square feet as the anchor tenant at Two Manhattan West — the second new office tower to be developed at the 5.4 million-square-foot campus.