Haim Chera, a principal of Crown Acquisitions, one of the retail portion's partners, tells GlobeSt.com that Abercrombie originally planned to move into the former Brooks Brothers at the corner of 53d Street and Fifth Avenue, but instead took over the Hickey Freeman space, which was closed due to the bankruptcy of parent company Hartmarx. Abercrombie initially planned to use the space for the first Manhattan locale of its abercrombie kids concept, but instead opted to build on the success of the Hollister flagship.

Taking over the Hickey Freeman space gives Abercrombie 13 additional feet of ground-level frontage, for a total of 53 feet, and bumps up the ground-level square footage by 1,600 square feet. There's also a 5,000-square-foot second level, Chera says.

Chera, whose company owns the retail portion of 666 Fifth in partnership with the Carlyle Group, says "there's a lot of activity" among prospective tenants for the former Brooks Brothers space at 666 Fifth. It's a 30,000-square-foot space that could be expanded into a 200,000-square-foot department store if the tenant were so inclined.