Exclusive | Famed Polo Bar will leave its iconic NYC home for free rent risking its exclusivity

This is an offer that could not be refused.After more than a decade as one of New York’s most impossible tables to book, Ralph Lauren’s Polo Bar is leaving the wood-paneled Midtown perch that made it a fixture of the city’s high-society scene, The Post has confirmed.Related Companies has secured a deal to relocate the see-and-be-seen restaurant into a 53-story office tower it’s building four blocks north at 625 Madison Ave., according to a person familiar with the leasing negotiations. What’s more, Related is sweetening the deal with a rent break that could stretch on for years, according to a separate person familiar with the matter. The developer has offered Polo Bar at least two years of free rent to make the move, the source said, as part of a broader push that also includes courting the restaurant’s parent company to expand into Palm Beach, all on the heels of Ralph Lauren’s recent Polo Bar opening in London.This move will take Polo Bar out of its current home just off Fifth Avenue, where it has operated since 2015, and into the ground floor of a brand-new tower expected to be completed in the summer of 2029.Related declined to comment.

Polo Bar did not respond to a request for comment.Polo Bar’s relocation is viewed internally as one major factor that has helped drive strong leasing demand at the tower. That demand also includes leases nearing completion with two other companies, General Assembly and software investment firm Veritas, which would be among the first office tenants to commit to the project, the person said.Additionally, there is an undisclosed tenant who is close to finalizing the top two floors of the building, the source added.“What we’ve seen in New York, the interplay between restaurants and ground-floor retail space acting as an amenity to the office tenants upstairs, has taken on a tremendous importance when landlords are considering either major repositioning of an office building or ground-up new construction, lik...