LVMH, Richemont, Kering, Hermès, Chanel... For many years, the luxury giants have been making record acquisitions on Paris's most prestigious avenues. Hermès, for example, paid around €300 million for 17 rue de Sèvres in 2024. In the same year, Chanel signed for 42 avenue Montaigne for over €250 million.
These colossal investments enable them, among other things, to secure prime locations for the long term, send out strong signals to the financial market, but also to shape these addresses in their own image and according to their needs. With this in mind, LVMH, the luxury giant with over 75 brands, has filed several permits with the city of Paris this year.
At the height of summer, on July 31, for example, it filed a building permit via Louis Vuitton Malletier for the Hôtel Soltykoff at 10 rue Volney, in the 2nd arrondissement. The permit was to extend a 4-story building by adding levels and modifying its exterior appearance, creating a surface area of 238 square meters.
LVMH is thinking bigger at 10 rue Volney, a building that housed the Éléphant Paname art and dance center between 2012 and 2020. A private real estate company, which had acquired it from the Fiat family in 2021 for around €27.1 million, sold the building to LVMH in 2023 for around €58.5 million.
Since then, the group headed by Bernard Arnault has been negotiating with the city of Paris with plans to completely renovate the property and establish it as the headquarters of the conglomerate's jewelry activities. Last year, the Commission du Vieux Paris, meeting on May 7, examined this transformation project for a complex comprising a private mansion and a building at the back of the plot. While it welcomed the forthcoming restoration of damaged decorations, it opposed the demolition of a glass-paved vault linking the two buildings, one considered by the Commission to be "rare in Paris."
Against this backdrop, LVMH modified its renovation project, for which the architecture and scenography firm Moatti & Rivière produced an outlook. The group proposed retaining the vault, while adding a glass dome on top — a dome evoking a precious stone, in resonance with the future use of the premises. This development was welcomed by the Commission du Vieux Paris, which met on March 4, 2025, and lifted its resolution of May 7, 2024.
So now, the city of Paris will have to rule on the permit filed by LVMH on July 31, but that is not the only one.
Permits on the Champs-Élysées
The luxury giant filed other permits in 2025, notably for buildings on the Champs-Élysées. One of these, filed on June 13 via Louis Vuitton Malletier, concerns 103 Champs-Élysées, the former headquarters of HSBC France bank, where LVMH is once again thinking big.
Owned by Qatar but leased by the luxury group, this 20,000-square-meter property is to be transformed into a mixed-use venue. It will house the world's largest Louis Vuitton store — nearly 6,000 square meters — as well as the brand's very first hotel and exhibition space. Against this backdrop, the Group filed a modification permit this year to change the building's use from retail and offices to hotel accommodation.
The permit also provides for the creation of additional floor space in this emblematic building, now dressed up like a giant Louis Vuitton trunk. It includes: "the creation and expansion of a basement level," "interior redevelopment," "the creation of an interior courtyard," "modification of the roof terrace," and "expansion of the delivery area."
In the same vein, LVMH is also thinking bigger at 150 Champs-Élysées, an 18,000-square-meter building which the company signed for in 2023 at the cost of €1 billion. This asset is undergoing extensive restructuring to transform it into a five-star hotel. The project also includes 5,000 square meters of retail space, including a 3,000-square-meter flagship store and a new-generation cinema.
On May 6, 2025, the luxury group filed an amending permit via SNC Almandine 150 CE for this building. The purpose of this permit is to convert 3,920 square meters of floor space originally intended for residential use into offices and shops, demolish 7,516 square meters of floor space, and create 9,107 square meters of floor space.
Finally, the group has filed permits via Tiffany & Co., the jewelry house it acquired in 2021, to modify the storefronts of two boutiques: 100 Champs-Élysées, owned by a joint venture between Norges Bank Investment Management and Generali Real Estate; and 34 avenue Montaigne, owned by Mutuelle des Cuisiniers de France.