French hospitality outfit Accor signs lease at Michael Shvo’s 711 Fifth Ave

The sounds of levity at 711 Fifth Avenue last week didn’t come from the spectacular Core Club on the tower’s top four floors, but from the new offices of Accor on the seventh floor.

The French hospitality company was celebrating its move there after signing an unreported, 23,000 square-foot lease in December, sources told Realty Check.

The deal for which sources said the asking rent was $120 per square brought 711 Fifth’s 350,000 square feet to 90% leased — the latest coup for developer Michael Shvo and his partners, who bought the former Coca-Cola Building for over $900 million in 2019 when it was 74% leased, according to market insiders. An impending deal with an unidentified tenant is expected to completely fill the building.

Shvo’s company, stylized as SHVO, has specialized in acquiring architecturally distinctive properties and investing heavily in restoring and upgrading them.

It scored a pandemic-era coup by leasing 60,000 square feet at 711 Fifth for the relocated, private Core Club — a four-level, gleaming complex of dining rooms, bars, screening rooms and fitness facilities that Realty Check was recently fortunate to visit with a friend.

Office tenants include Loro Piana and Allen + CO and retail tenants include Polo Bar, Omega and Mango. Sources said rents have doubled since Shvo’s acquisition, with asking rents up to $205 per square foot

Shvo, once known as a news-making residential broker, transitioned into the commercial world with 711 Fifth purchase.

According to his company’s Web site, his portfolio includes ownership or stakes in Manhattan’s Crown Building and 125 Greenwich St., San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid Center and major properties in Chicago and Miami Beach.

Shvo declined to comment.