Tara Stacom and Michael Rotchford, executives at Cushman & Wakefield, took top honors at REBNY’s annual Most Ingenious Deal of the Year Award last night for their work representing the owners of One World Trade Center in the large office lease that was done there last year with the publishing and media giant Conde Nast.
The event, which dolls out a trio of awards, ended with three prominent women as winners, a notable result in the male-dominated leasing and sales brokerage business.
Mary Ann Tighe, CBRE’s New York chief executive, and Gregory Tosko, a vice chairman at the firm, took second place for their role in the World Trade Center deal, in which they represented Conde Nast.
Though the World Trade Center deal with the publishing and media company has already been widely hailed as last year’s most significant transaction and a lease that immediately bolstered Lower Manhattan’s image into a desireable destination for office tenants, its sweep of the two top spots at this REBNY year’s awards placed even more significance and accolades on the 1.1 million-square-foot lease.
Darcy Stacom, Tara’s younger sister who focuses on sales, and her colleague Bill Shanahan, both high ranking sales executives at CBRE, won third place for arranging the sale of 2 Gotham Center, a large office complex that was built in Long Island City in recent years by the developer Tishman Speyer. In that deal, the 670,000-square-foot property was sold for $415.5 million to H&R, a Canada-based REIT.
The first place award, which is referred to as the Henry Hart Rice Award, was Tara Stacom’s first, a fact that surprised even her colleague Mr. Rotchford.
“This is her first win?” Mr. Rotchford asked The Commercial Observer with surprise.
Ms. Stacom has been a top dealmaker at C&W for years and has been involved in a number of notable leasing transactions through her career. The Henry Hart Rice Award is a coveted honor in the real estate brokerage business that is widely considered one of its most prestigious recognitions.
Ms. Stacom told The Commercial Observer that years of work had gone into the Conde Nast deal, preparation that she said likely helped her edge out the brokers – Ms. Tighe and Mr. Tosko – on the other side of transaction for first place in the eyes of REBNY’s judges.
“It took years of work to get the building to a point where a tenant like Conde Nast would even consider it,” Ms. Stacom said.
Ms. Stacom said that she, Mr. Rotchford and other C&W executives had helped the Port Authority, which is developing the three million-square-foot skyscraper, lay the groundwork for its success, a process that she said started in the mid 2000s to have the agency take over the project from its original builder, Silverstein Properties.
“We helped urge the Port Authority to then bring on a partner from the private sector because we knew that that was also essential to making the building appealing to tenants,” Ms. Stacom said, referring to an agreement reached over a year ago for the Durst Organization to invest $100 million and partner with the Port Authority in owning One Trade Center and managing its leasing.
The night’s finish was the first time sisters both won awards and also the only time the same deal won first and second place.
The night featured a number of notable contenders. Bruce Mosler and Joshua Kuriloff, two top leasing executives at C&W, were among those expected to receive strong consideration for their work representing NYU Langone Medical Center in a 420,000-square-foot lease at One Park Avenue, a deal that allowed the previously distressed building to be recapitalized by the office landlord Vornado and put back on solid financial footing.
John Cefaly and Robert Lowe, two other prominent C&W leasing executives, were also in the running for brokering last year’s largest deal in Midtown, a 900,000-square-foot deal with the Japanese financial company Nomura at the office building Worldwide Plaza.
