Porcelanosa set to open its first shop in New York

Foster + Partners will remodel the building on Fifth Avenue.

202 Fifth Avenue, New York – or the Commodore Criterion building – has been chosen by Porcelanosa Group as the site to establish its flagship store in Manhattan. World-renowned architects Foster + Partners, whose founder and chairman is British starchitect Norman Foster, has been commissioned to refurbish this iconic building, which, along with several others, is protected by the city of New York.

Porcelanosa Grupo’s new shop occupies almost 2,000 sq m and boasts six storeys. Its location, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway – opposite the Flatiron Building and with the imposing Empire State Building behind it – will help make it a major landmark.

The hope is that the refurbishment of the building will be approved in the next few months since Foster + Partners’ reputation has already convinced the New York authorities, who have total faith in the architects’ method of restoration, that they can carry this out. Once the approval is fully granted, the work should be completed by the end of 2013.

Porcelanosa Grupo has over 400 shops all over the world, including its own ones as well as those of distributors. More specifically, in the US, the company has 18 of its own shops. This leading, Spanish purveyor of ceramic surfaces exports over 75 per cent of its goods.