Earlier this month, the leasing team from Cushman & Wakefield took us on a tour through 712 Olive Street, a historic department store in Downtown's Financial District that is being rehabbed as creative office space.

Located catacorner to the NoMad hotel at 7th and Olive Streets, the six-story building will feature approximately 160,000 square feet of rentable office space when it reopens later this year.  The 101-year-old structure, visible due to its red brick exterior, may also offer ground-floor commercial uses.

According to brokers Mike Condon Jr., Pete Collins, and Kelli Snyder of Cushman & Wakefield, the building offers the "first real jewel box penthouse" for office tenants, with 10,000 square feet linked by interconnecting stairs between floors.  The remaining levels of the building will each feature 13-to-20-foot high ceilings.

Cushman & Wakefield is intentionally holding off on leasing the ground-floor space in the event that a "unique officer user," would eventually look to inhabit both the upper floors offices and the street-level retail.

Architecture firm Rapt Studio is designing the project, which created new on-site parking by repurposing an existing basement level and excavating a second subterranean floor beneath the building.  The garage will feature electrical vehicle charging stations.

Built in 1917 as a Villa de Paris department store, 712 Olive has most recently been known as the L.A. Jewelry Mart.  Atlas Capital Group, which purchased the building along with several other trophy assets once controlled by now-defunct EVOQ properties, is also converting an adjoining three-story building into retail space.

The 712 Olive building is expected to open in Summer 2018, according to Condon and Snyder.