Verigold Jewelry will be moving to a new office in Midtown.
The jewelry trading company, previously located on the ninth floor of 501 Madison Avenue, will be moving to an 11,735-square-foot office at 3 East 54th Street. The company is a subsidiary of Mumbai-based Renaissance Group and designs, manufacturers, and sells diamond and gem jewelry. Read More
Bravo Media is expanding their operations in New York.
The innovative production company has inked a 10-year deal to take 5,300 square feet at 145 West 28th Street. The new space, located on the second floor of the building, will feature a production studio and a green screen. The company boasts an impressive client list including work with Beyonce, Rihanna, IBM, HBO, and recently Anthony Bourdain‘s No Reservations. Read More
SoulCycle will be opening their first Brooklyn location at 184 Kent Avenue.
The luxury indoor cycling boutique, a subsidiary of Equinox, has inked a fifteen year deal for 4,300 square feet on the ground floor of a new residential building in Williamsburg.
“I targeted SoulCycle as an ideal tenant for the space and made the Read More
That was the question The Observer put to a group of planning and infrastructure experts yesterday, after Senator Chuck Schumer announced that he expected the state to receive about $9 billion for storm mitigation measures, as part of its request to Congress for Sandy aid. After all, that is far from enough money to build some of those vaunted sea gates, though there is nothing to suggest more money might not be on the horizon in the future.
For now, though, here are their recommendations on what to do with $9 billion in new storm-securing infrastructure investments. Read More
Petco has inked a deal for a new location in the Bronx.
The pet supply store will be located in the Riverdale Crossing retail center and will occupy 9,556 square feet of ground floor space in the freestanding building next to the crossing’s 118,000-square-foot anchor tenant, BJ’s Wholesale Club. Read More
Grassi & Co. is set to expand their presence at 488 Madison Avenue.
The accounting firm has finalized their purchase of another accounting firm, Pustorini Puglisi, and will be adding an additional 10,311 square feet to their presence of 13,081 square feet in the building. Grassi & Co. currently operates out of the 21st floor but will be customizing and constructing their new addition on the 23rd floor, slated to be completed in the middle of January 2013. Read More
Investment firm steps up NY’s priciest place [Crain’s New York]
Acquisitive investor snaps up two sites [Crain’s New York]
Brookfield taps NGKF to lease 245 Park Avenue [Real Estate Weekly]
Construction Numbers Take a Wrong Turn [GlobeSt.com]
Basically everybody but the Bloomberg administration and select landlords in the area want to see the Midtown East Rezoning delayed. While there is a general consensus that creating room for bigger, more modern office buildings in the heart of the city’s central business district makes sense, many planners and community groups fear the administration is rushing the plan to get it done on the mayor’s watch, rather than taking the necessary time to figure out exactly what to build.
Now, the three community boards directly effected by the rezoning are calling on Governor Cuomo to intervene, and their rationale is an interesting, if desperate, one. Read More
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Each Friday morning you will find our exclusive stories on the latest transactions, informative charts, Q&As Read More
Interpublic Group of Companies is in talks to lease an additional 95,000 square feet of space at Vornado Realty Trust’s 1.1 million-square-foot 100 West 33rd Street, sources tell The Commercial Observer.
The 15-year lease and expansion would bring IPG’s total space across two Vornado buildings up to 745,000 square feet. Read More
Number of stalled NYC construction sites jumps to January 2011 levels [The Real Deal]
Fifth Ave. dethroned as world’s top retail address [Crain’s New York]
Tiffany expands to 405,000 s/f and fills 200 Fifth [Real Estate Weekly]
For a time, it looked as though Jean Nouvel’s MoMA Tower would be the tallest apartment building in the city, when the 1,250-foot shard was proposed four years ago. Having been cut down to 1,050 feet by planning chief Amanda Burden, and with the revelation earlier this week that Gary Barnett is building a 1,550-foot tower on Broadway and 57th Street–to compliment his 1,005-foot One57 and surpass Harry Macklowe’s 1,397-foot 432 Park–it appears Torre Verre, the MoMA Tower’s official name, will simply be a very tall apartment building. Very, very tall.
That, and the project’s starchitect pedigree, have the design-obsessed online watching the project’s every move. Last week, a contributor to the site Skyscraper City noticed that what looked like pile-driving equipment had been assembled on the site next to the Museum of Modern Art. This was a sure sign of the project’s imminent commencement, or so the photographer surmised. Lo, it is not so, according to Hines, the condo tower’s developer. Read More
The 30 Under 30 issue is the perfect time for The Commercial Observer to propose a battle of wits between young brokers and their (relatively) veteran mentors.
In our attempt to mimic Trivial Pursuit, we’ve come up with questions spanning technical industry minutiae, the real estate loyalties of New York’s finest rappers and History 101 that should be familiar to real estate professionals young and old. After the jump, Commercial Observer staff writer Billy Gray provides the questions and answers. Read More
For better or worse, ever since the construction of the High Line Park,existing tenants on Manhattan’s far West Side have felt its effects. Some have reaped the benefits of added pedestrian traffic, while others have faced the sting of being squeezed out of the area thanks to escalating rents.
At Heller Gallery, a hub for contemporary glass sculpture that’s been housed at the base of 420 West 14th Street since 1973,the latter has become an unfortunate reality. While their lease on the 3,600-square-foot gallery isn’t set to expire until July, owners have ex- pressed interest in leaving sooner, citing the rising cost of operating in the Meatpacking District.
As leasing agent at the six-story, E.B.S.-owned building, Winick Realty Group Director Kelly Gedinsky has been tout-ing the asset’s great location and high ceiling in her marketing campaign to would-be retailers. After the jump, Ms. Gedinsky reviews the floor plan with The Commercial Observer and discusses what, exactly, will draw future tenants to the space once Heller Gallery vacates early next year.
Read More
New York City has been whipped around over the past couple of months, and though the number of jobs has declined since August, the naked city is still near a record-high figure of 3,887,100 jobs as of the end of October.
Health services remains the largest industry by employment, with 601,600 positions, or 16 percent of the total jobs. That just beats out trade, transport and utilities with 15 percent (thank those retail workers for that), and government (certain to remain in the top three despite all of the fiscal cliff talk) with 14 percent. The biggest gainer in terms of absolute numbers has been leisure and hospitality which has added more than 100,000 positions in the past 10 years alone. Read More
