Winoker Realty Principal, Corey Abdo.

In June, Winoker Realty—a second-generation real estate investment and services firm, strong in the Garment District and beyond—lost its president and principal, David Winoker, in a skydiving accident that rattled the real estate industry. In the wake of his death, Corey Abdo, the firm’s executive vice president and principal, took the reins at the firm. Now, a little more than six months after assuming the top position, Mr. Abdo spoke with The Commercial Observer about riding the tech wave in Midtown South, plans soon to unfold at Winoker and the June 15 day he lost his colleague of 11 years.

The Commercial Observer: This past year was tragic, given the untimely death of David Winoker, and working through it must have been a challenge. How did 2012 ultimately pan out for the firm, business-wise?

Mr. Abdo: 2012 was better than break-even. We weren’t sure what was going to happen, halfway through the year, because of the tragedy, but it turned out to be a good year for the firm, which was fortuitous for everybody, because it’s a really good group of people that work hard [and] know their jobs. The tragedy could have been terrible, and it was, in so many ways. However, from a business point of view, the company continues to thrive.

Were there any interesting transactions toward the end of the year?

We’re a volume shop. We had a couple of larger transactions this year—40,000 square feet closed in the summer, a deal that I did with a company called FarePortal at 135 West 50^th Street—but, like I said, we’re a volume shop. One of our main focuses is serving our customers, both tenants and landlords. The deals come in all different sizes.

The Garment District has been a landing zone for companies initially seeking space in Midtown South, and Winoker has some interests in the Flatiron District. Has Winoker benefitted from this run on Midtown South?

Oh, absolutely. More and more technology companies are looking in this neighborhood because of what’s happened in Meatpacking and Chelsea. This is probably one of the last neighborhoods in town where you can still get a good value deal. Most of these buildings, though older, have been renovated and upgraded from a technological point of view.

It’s funny, we spent years trying to get away from the tag of being known as the West Side, Garment District company—which was never a fair moniker, although a lot of our buildings that we own and manage are in the neighborhood, and a lot of our promotional business is done in this neighborhood. The fact is, we do transactional brokerage all over the city. But we’re experts on this neighborhood because this is where we live.

So now the technology firms, the media companies and firms from Park Avenue South that are still looking for value are coming this way, and it’s a very exciting time for us. It bodes well for the future.

In the future, do you see a focus on making investments in other neighborhoods?

Yes, we look to make investments anywhere that there’s an opportunity. This is a city that’s made up of dozens of neighborhoods. This is where our officers are located, but like any real estate firm, the transactions we do can be anywhere.

Which other neighborhoods are you interested in?

Besides here, Park Avenue South, Flatiron, Chelsea, and even reaching farther down in Soho, Noho or Tribeca—all of those areas.

Have you seen a change in tenants looking for space?

The most voracious appetite for space in the last 12 months has obviously been tech companies and media companies. And yes, they are looking for both startup space and transitional space. Depending upon how they’re funded, they’re still keeping a close eye on the bottom line. That’s going to bring them to [the Garment District]; it’s going to bring them to a newly developing area called NoMad, which is an up-and-coming area. There’s still value there. The buildings tend to have smaller floorplates, but they’re ideal for the boutique firms—the 3,000- to 5,000- to 7,000-footers can still find a full-floor identity at a reasonable price point.

There’s a lot of activity in these markets. Most of the firms in New York—probably more than 95 percent—have 20 or fewer employees. So there’s always a lot of activity in that market, and our brokers are very busy. That’s a big part of our market share.

What’s your strategy going into 2013? Will we see changes?

There are certain things that I can’t talk about now because we are in the final stages of a reconstitution of the firm, but I’m very, very optimistic about the direction we’re going in. Like I said, this past year was one of those curveballs that life throws at you, and after the initial shock, I think we realized that we didn’t hit an iceberg—we lost our captain.

But everybody knew their jobs. Our clients and our customers have all remained loyal, and there are going to be new and exciting announcements coming very shortly. I don’t mean to be secretive about it, but I just can’t speak definitively on a specific direction, other than that it is up.

Does this reconstitution have to do with a change in strategy or personnel?

It is both.

Tell me a little bit about how Winoker has grown.

I’d say that in the last two years, we’ve grown our promotional brokerage department probably by 20 to 25 percent. Building management—that part of the platform—has been stable.

David was actively talking to owners about bringing in new properties. My function here is working with brokers and the tenant-rep side of the business, and we’ve been growing that steadily. When I joined the company 11 years ago, there were maybe four or five promotional brokers, and now there are 17.

We’ve had some attrition, but for the most part we’ve been able to hold on to our good people.

How many buildings does the firm manage at this point?

We have 27 buildings under leasing and management, either third-party or a combination of the above. Some of those we have ownership position with.

Do you remember where you were when you heard the news about Mr. Winoker?

Yes, I do. I was in the middle of a run. It was a Friday night at about 5:30. I was running. I was out jogging from my house down to the high school track where I run. I got the phone call.

Obviously, I ran back to my house as fast as I could, took a quick shower and I jumped in my car and I started driving to Poughkeepsie, which is where the hospital was that David was taken. I didn’t even stop to think for two seconds until I got into the car and started making phone calls and was able to reach people and start to get a clearer picture of what had happened. It’s a day, it’s a moment that, obviously, I will never forget.

The world changed for me and 35 other good people here on that day.

What was the atmosphere at the firm in the aftermath of his passing?

Shock, disbelief. David was 49 years old. I was not only his partner, we were friends. We became very close, working together hand-in-hand for 11 years. We had a lot of great plans that we were instituting—ways to grow the company, to become more efficient. All of that is instantly changed, in the matter of a microsecond. Once you get over the shock and you start to accept the reality, you do what you have to do to keep things together.

That’s what the second half of 2012 was—making sure that everyone here was okay and business was going to continue as usual and not suffer. As it turned out, it did quite the opposite. Business has continued to grow and flourish. I think everyone rededicated themselves—in David’s name, or out of a sense of pride.

Ultimately, it’s been a bonding experience. We have not lost one individual, one employee, one owner, and I think that that speaks more for the quality of the personnel here than anything I could say.

When Mr. Winoker died, you were placed in the position of having to bear the burden of leadership for the firm without warning. How did you deal with that?

I don’t want to sound trite, but it really is on a day-to-day basis. The first order of business was to meet with all of the owners and assure them that the systems that David had set up and instituted to care and manage their buildings were good, well-thought-out, very efficient systems. And David had staffed the firm with a talent level that I think is on par with any company in the city.

Give me a sense of what the future holds for the firm.

If you look at a company as an organism, an organism is tested when times are tough, not when times are good. For us, I think we went through one of the toughest tests that you can put on an individual or a firm. I think the results will speak for themselves, and they’ll say a lot about the character and the talent of the people that work here.

kstrauss@observer.com

The building is owned by The Mandell School, a preschool and kindergarten through grade 8 school which operates at several locations throughout Manhattan. Basic Trust will move into the 94^th street location when Mandell’s current tenant – MCC, an organization serving autistic children – vacates in 2014, said David Lebenstein, senior managing director and principal of Cassidy Turley who represented the buyer.

127 West 94th Street

Basic Trust, which currently operates out of St. Michael’s Church at 225 West 99^th Street, has been seeking a place of its own since about 2005, said Mr. Lebenstein, who spent years assisting the organization in their search. “On and off over many years we’ve looked at many options.” Though it had a cordial relationship with St. Michael’s, the organization felt it wanted to own its own building.

Because of the nature of its business, Basic Trust needed a townhouse or commercial condo in the same neighborhood in which it had been operating. Those specific criteria are difficult to come by in the Upper West Side Market where little new product emerges, Mr. Lebenstein said. “It’s hard to find this kind of stuff.”

In 127 West 94^th Street, it found a perfect home, complete with a play area in the back yard. “It even came with the licenses they need for their preschool,” Mr. Lebenstein explained.

The Mandell School was founded in the building in 1938 by Max Mandell and three generations of his family lived in there since, including current school head, Gabriella Rowe. Originally the Mandell School served 20 children. Than number has ballooned to over 600, being served at the organization’s other locations, she said. “It all started in that townhouse.”

Mr. Mandell, who spearheaded an outreach program in the Upper West Side, would likely be pleased to see the birthplace of his institution acquired by an organization like Basic Trust, Ms. Rowe said. “It really was, I think, the perfect long term home for (Basic Trust),” she said.

Other buyers were considered but less than stellar financing put other interested parties out of the running. Basic Trust financed its acquisition with TD Bank, a mortgage and about 30 percent money down from its own reserve funds.

The building has been held in trust for the Mandell family and Ms. Rowe said the money from the sale will go towards paying for her own children’s higher education.

William Cohen

Four brokers at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank will be taking over leasing responsibilities for three prewar office buildings on Broadway. The buildings, owned by W&H Properties, include 1333, 1350 and 1359 Broadway.

The leasing team will consist of William Cohen, executive vice president and principal, and Ryan Kass, senior managing director, Neil Rubin, director of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, an existing member of the team, and Andrew Weisz, a recent NGKF hire from Cushman & Wakefield. The previous leasing agent was NGKF Executive Managing Director Rob Silver.

Messrs. Cohen and Kass were chosen to head up the leasing squad because of their understanding of the boutique office market, said Anthony Malkin, president of Malkin Holdings LLC, which supervises the W&H Properties portfolio of the prewar trophy office buildings. The two had been successful as leasing agents for One Grand Central Place and the Empire State Building, he said.

“They understand our vision for these Pre-War Trophy properties, and they have helped make this vision a reality through aggressive, strategic leasing efforts that attract top brokers and their tenants,” Mr. Malkin said.

Ryan Kass

The buildings have newly renovated lobbies, elevators, windows and systems, Mr. Malkin said. Address 1359 is six percent vacant, 1350 is ten percent vacant and 1333 is completely full, save for 62,000 square feet of retail space that the NGKF team will not be working to lease.

Mr. Cohen has been a leasing broker in the New York metropolitan area for 33 years.  In this time, he has served as an agent for more than 25 million feet of commercial space.

Mr. Kass joined Newmark Grubb Knight Frank in 2003.  Since then, he has completed over 600 transactions totaling a value in excess of $2 billion.

Mr. Rubin joined Newmark Grubb Knight Frank in 2000, following a three-year affiliation with Julien J. Studley, Inc. Before entering the field of real estate, he worked as a financial analyst in both the securities and media industries.

An attractive location for tech and media, 915 Broadway houses Artspace, Adap TV and cloud services firm, Flurry.

Despite lower rents and greater vacancies in lower Manhattan, technology and media firms will not likely leave the Midtown and Midtown South neighborhoods they’ve come to call home.

The much publicized scramble by companies in the tech and media sphere – both startups and established firms – to put down roots in Midtown South has led to surging rents and little available space. But intimidating prices will likely lead to more such firms seeking coworking space rather than moving to entirely new neighborhoods, said Ashkán Zandieh, director of the TechStarter report for ABS Partners.

One of Mr. Zandieh’s clients, the CEO of a tech-media firm he would not name, said it would be more attractive to remain in the General Assembly coworking space at 902 Broadway than it would be to lease space in Lower Manhattan due to the proximity the firm now has to other startups of its kind. “The success of the startup scene is directly tied to the success of the coworking scene,” Mr. Zandieh said.

New York venture capital firms invested $2.3 billion in 397 deals in 2012, an 18 percent decrease in dollars and a 4.3 percent decrease in deals in 2011, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association. This could translate to smaller early stage funding for startups and less money to spend on office space. “It does have a negative effect on dedicated space,” Mr. Zandieh explained. Leasing coworking space will be the option chosen by burgeoning tech and media firms, he said.

Popular coworking locations in Manhattan include Grind at 419 Park Avenue South, AlleyNYC at 500 Seventh Avenue and Projective Space at 447 Broadway and 72 Allen Street.

Building owners looking to market their buildings as a coworking environment will need large floor plates, an abundance of natural light, strong fiber optic connections and, preferably, a tech and media tenant already in place, as startup firms “may be hesitant to move into a building where there isn’t a startup already,” Mr. Zandieh said.

The outliers in the equation are more established firms that have settled in their own dedicated offices outside of Midtown South and the Silicon Alley area because they don’t feel that close proximity to similar firms is as essential. Moda Operandi moved from 72 Madison to 315 Hudson Street, taking nearly 24,882 square feet, while Fab.com leased 23,500 square feet at 95 Morton Street.

Brooklyn has become a landing zone for technology and media firms as well, offering office and coworking space in the The Yard at 33 Nassau Avenue, Industry City, Dumbo, Greenpoint CoWorking at 240 North Henry Street and Secret Clubhouse at 117 South 3^rd Street in Williamsburg.

Though Brooklyn offers greater opportunity for larger spaces, proximity to Silicon Alley and the Union Square transportation hub is what many firms are looking for. “Major hubs for transportation are the lifeline for these startups.”

Companies that have achieved a certain level of establishment and funding, and are looking to expand operations to New York from elsewhere in the country or from overseas, will not likely see Brooklyn as an option. “You move to New York, you move to Manhattan,” Mr. Zandieh said.

Times Square Capital leased 28,000+ square feet at 7 Times Square. (photo: Boston Properties)

Times Square Capital has landed at 7 Times Square, taking over the entirety of the building’s 42^nd floor in a deal that saw four different parties get what they wanted.

Time Square Capital – as part of a full relocation from its headquarters at 1177 Avenue of the Americas – took 28,415 square feet of space once occupied by London-based law firm Ashurst, which had downsized to a 20,000 square foot subleased area on the building’s 19^th floor once occupied by law firm Day Pitney, which also moved to a smaller space in 7 Times Square.

Times Square Capital’s agreement will keep the company in place for ten years, giving building owner, Boston Properties, the long term tenant it desired. “If anyone had changed (their minds), the whole thing would have fallen apart,” said a source familiar with the transaction.

Times Square had sought a new office in the Times Square and West Side area for over a year before settling on its new home. Negotiations began in the fall of 2012 and the deal closed in December.

Known as the Times Square Tower – or 1457 Broadway – the building was constructed in 2004, having been designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Times Square’s new digs on the 42^nd floor of the 47 floor building boast panoramic views of the surrounding metropolis. The building features about 1.2 million square feet and is located on the south side of 42nd Street between Broadway and 7th Avenue.

CBRE brokers Ben Friedland and Silvio Petriello orchestrated the deal on behalf of Times Square Capital and declined to comment for this article.

Boston Properties was represented by in-house broker Adam Frazier, who did not respond to several calls for comment on the matter. Cresa broker Marcus Rainer represented Ashurst in its negotiations. He did not respond to a call for comment by press time.

Dating website -- Datemyschool.com -- has set up its headquarters at Brooklyn's Industry City.

New dating and social networking site, Datemyschool.com, has set up shop at Industry City in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park waterfront, The Commercial Observer has learned. The dotcom startup closed on the deal in June but had not released information on the transaction until now.

The burgeoning company has leased 8,500 square feet at an asking price of about $12 per foot, in the complex’s Building 3 and according to Industry City leasing manager, Jeff Fein, is one of the many new types of companies making a home there. “We’re getting creative, we’re getting social media companies like them. That’s where the property is headed.”

The agreement will keep the eight-employee company in its new headquarters for the next three years, said Datemyschool.com’s Edward Reybitz, director of human resources and marketing.

“We started in the lower financial district at a shared space,” Mr. Reybitz explained. “We were looking to go elsewhere to have our own space. We plan on growing so we needed something bigger and somewhere we could do our own thing.”

It was cost and accessibility that brought Datemyschool.com to Industry City. “The buildings were nicely constructed, it seemed very accessible because of the location of the metro and for what we could get – versus what we could ultimately get in Manhattan – its doubled or almost tripled the amount of space.”

Another aspect of the site that made Industry City an attractive landing zone for the company was its proximity to the water. An East River location, with views to Manhattan, was important for company founders Balazs Alexa and Jean Meyer.

The company’s new digs feature an office, storage space, the all-important work space and a ping pong table.

Datemyschool.com offers a new twist on dating and networking, offering a dating platform for students and alumni that boasts extensive privacy control and safety features. It permits only verified students and alumni to join and enables members to restrict schools, departments, individuals and other groups from accessing their profiles. “We have about 200,000 users nationwide,” said Melanie Wallner, the site’s director of public relations.

Now that the company has settled in, it plans to expand its user base. “Very soon we’re going to be launching on mobile,” Ms. Wallner explained. “And we will be expanding internationally as well.” Korea is the first target for international growth, as Datemyschool.com’s investors are based there. Regardless of its targeting users overseas, the company will be centered in Industry City. “Probably for a very long time,” she added. “We love it there.”

Part of WegoWise's energy-tracking interface.

Ask any city building owner or manager in new York City and they’ll likely agree that maximizing efficiency can save money. Energy efficiency can be a quick way for landlords to realize savings through tax breaks or through the added interest from tenants who wish to live in an efficient, responsible building.

The problem is that owners don't make efficiency investments because it is the renters who pay the utility bills, while renters don't make efficiency investments in property they don't own.

Liberty Property Trust, a $6.9 billion REIT based in Pennsylvania, is taking steps to monitor efficiency in its buildings through benchmarking—comparing energy use to that of similar buildings. Landlords in Gotham might do well to do the same.

Marla Thalheimer, director of sustainability with the REIT, Liberty Property Trust.

“If we’re looking at improving the efficiency of our assets, most standard lease structures allow improvements that generate savings to be passed through to the tenants,” said Marla Thalheimer, director of sustainability at Liberty Property. “Oftentimes, if it’s a larger expenditure, it can be amortized to where the tenant still sees immediate savings while paying for that particular measure.

Positive elements – for landlords – of energy efficiency include lowering the cost of occupancy for tenants, which can lead to rent increases which leads to overall increases in asset value, Ms. Thalheimer said. “Higher occupancy rates too, if you have a good, efficient building.”

Coming out of an economic downturn, building owners are not rushing to retrofit their assets to become as efficient as possible. Knowing which assets are most in need of an energy-use overhaul is the first step to prioritizing those types of investments, Ms. Thalheimer said.

It all starts with gauging where a building rates on the efficiency scale. Liberty Property – which owns about 700 buildings in the United States and U.K., primarily for office and industrial use – uses Energy Star to keep tabs on energy use statistics for the 129 of those properties it manages directly.

The remainder – mostly triple net leased buildings – are monitored through a partnership with tenants, who allow the company to track usage. “It’s a way for the landlord and tenant to work together to optimize efficiency.” Once permission is given by tenants, Liberty Property uses WegoWise – a Boston-based, energy-use tracking company – to gather information from utilities, analyze it and present it on a dashboard.

“The thing about energy efficiency is that you need to be able to get your arms around the problem – especially when you’re a landlord of multiple buildings – understanding which buildings are performing well and which buildings are performing poorly,” said Dan Teague, the director of business development with WegoWise. “The key to that is data.”

The software-as-a-service company allows use-intel to be gathered from any number of buildings and assembled in one interface. The tracking software can also keep up on how well efficiency retrofits have improved performance.

80 Wooster Street just hit the market: 6,300 square feet, two levels and an elevator.

About 6,300 square feet of retail space just popped onto the market in Soho Thursday, featuring two levels and an interior elevator.

80 Wooster Street, between Spring and Broome Streets, is looking for a tenant and is being marketed by exclusive leasing agents, Douglas Elliman’s retail Chairman Faith Hope Consolo and Executive Vice President Joseph Aquino.

The property contains approximately 4,300 square feet at ground level, approximately 2,000 square feet at the lower-level selling space with offices, and an estimated 40+ feet of frontage. Owner, Christopher Fischer Cashmere, is expanding its space at 1225 Madison Avenue and vacating 80 Wooster, creating an opportunity for a new retailer. The owner is looking to lease for $225 per square foot.

All of the space available can be used for retail purposes. “In Soho, a lot of people operate downstairs with retail but it’s not legal,” Mr. Aquino said. “This one is legal.”

Though the space is in the vicinity of retailers like Chanel, Burberry, Tiffany & Co., and Mulberry; Ms. Consolo and Mr. Aquino are considering food vendors and restaurants among the dozen or so interested parties circling the property. “There’s a large demand in Soho right now for food,” Mr. Aquino said.

Interior of 80 Wooster Street, Christopher Fischer Cashmere.

Though the duo would not disclose which restaurants are interested in 80 Wooster, Ms. Consolo suggested that higher end eateries and vendors were possibilities. “We’re interviewing types like Sant Ambroeus, like Balthazar, and of course any of the Danny Meyer concepts would work here too,” she said. “Food and fashion go together and there’s a lot of demand. There aren’t enough restaurants in Soho and since this is a self-contained unit with huge visibility, huge frontage, it really lends itself. And you can do lunch and dinner, and that’s what people need to have.”

Mr. Aquino expects that the owner will accept a tenant within 90 days. “We should be in and out of this,” he said.

Photo: Peter Lettre/NY Observer

On a typical day, David Schechtman wakes at 5:30 a.m. in his Bedford, N.Y., home, showers, puts on a suit and drives to the train station to make his commute to the city. “I open up my office usually no later than 7:40 in the morning,” said Mr. Schectman. “I’ll either have an egg sandwich or an Organic Avenue juice. I log onto the computer and I start jamming.”

Mr. Schechtman’s “jamming” has led to the Eastern Consolidated principal being named the firm’s 2012 Broker of the Year—and for good reason. In 2012, he racked up $742 million in total volume—$242 million of which came from note sales.

Prominent among his deals last year were the $150 million trade of the prewar Chatsworth at 340 West 72^nd Street on the Upper West Side, the sale of a defaulted senior secured interest in a portfolio of multifamily elevator buildings in Harlem for $65.2 million and the sale of a 6,160-square-foot development site at 133-135 Greenwich Street for $28 million.

The onetime lawyer (he worked for DLA Piper) only pays attention to deals he knows he can close, eschewing those in which the asking price does not comport with reality.

“I’m not at the point in my career where I need to have tons of assignments,” said Mr. Schechtman, who heads a team of seven at Eastern, where he has worked since 2005. “I’m at the point in my career where I need to continue closing.”

For Mr. Schechtman, one of the more surreal moments of the year came at the end of a bidding war over a $32 million, three-acre defaulted note in Flushing, Queens, on behalf of U.S. Bank National Association.

“At the end, there were two bidders who were the most ferocious,” Mr. Schechtman said. One was the private equity arm of a notable billionaire, the other a group of local investors whom he described as “ultra-orthodox.”

“The ferocity of each bid was incredible,” said Mr. Schechtman. “You’d think they were buying the Empire State Building.”

By the end of the bidding process, the local investors topped the billionaire by taking the deal on an as-is basis.

“One of the most difficult and oddest phone calls I’ve ever had to make in my life was calling the real estate arm of this Forbes list billionaire and letting them know—with their counsel here, and it’s one of the Big Three lawyers in New York City for real estate—‘you lost,’” he said.

By 9:30 a.m., Mr. Schechtman’s day becomes hectic, with calls arriving at a fast pace. “I try not to do lunches anymore—this has been for the past year,” he said. “I don’t find them efficient anymore.”

He generally only goes to showings or building walkthroughs when the deal is ripe, if he’s pitching a deal or when bidding on a deal is coming to a close.

An important part of his business has been debt sales—indeed, it accounts for about a third of his total sales value last year—but to Mr. Schechtman it’s all real estate, and the vast majority of his note deals end with a tenant being handed the proverbial keys. Today they represent only 10 percent of his deals, he said while perusing a bulletin board with addresses and acronyms written under categories like Hot!, Exclusive and Percolating.

“That business is waning in New York, and it’s disappearing because the portfolio lenders ... have cleaned up their portfolios.”

“Will this change in New York City, not just for me but for other people who deal in goods of this kind? The answer is there will be additional volume and more of the note sales and/or distressed sales when and if the [commercial mortgage-backed securities]—some of those things—see the light of day.”

At 4 p.m., Mr. Schechtman sets aside an hour in order to practice yoga. He moves two chairs out of his office to make space, changes into his workout clothes and is visited by a yoga instructor to get his exercise fix (he’s run the New York Marathon twice, the Baltimore one once). When his afternoon schedule does not allow for it, he practices in the early morning.

When asked how he predicts the sales market will behave in 2013, Mr. Schechtman is bullish but wary.

“I think the first three quarters of this year—opportunities, signed contracts and closing—are going to continue to be record-setting,” he explained. “I’m concerned about the fourth quarter of this year, because it’s possible, by that time, our socialist—on the record—left-wing government may do something or may act, yet again, to further hamper commerce.”

Such wrenches in the gears could come in the form of taxation. “They have the ability to decimate trade, commerce, industry and real estate,” he said. “If they don’t—even if they just hurry up and do nothing—then this is going to be another one for the record books. Not even a question.”

The Canarsie-born, Long Island-raised broker has reasons for being bullish on the New York market, and his first is that everyone else in the world is too.

“Every single week, I am told by somebody from outside the United States they believe in New York City and they’re happy to be here, and they want to do something in New York City because it’s still the best, period.”

Another reason Mr. Schechtman waves the New York flag is the availability and relatively low cost of debt. “There is still positive leverage,” he said. Also, the recession’s impact may herald a return to fundamentals. “For the first time in several years, we have a positive savings rate,” he said.

Those fundamentals have taught people that real estate is a buy-and-hold type of game. “They don’t immediately expect it to be a cash cow,” said Mr. Schechtman. “Notwithstanding what people believe, I hate the moniker ‘distressed real estate’ when it pertains to New York City, because Rome was never burning.”

From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., the phones in Mr. Schechtman’s office are on fire. After the onslaught, he makes the 8:22 p.m. train at Grand Central back to North White Plains. He will have spoken to his wife, a practicing New York lawyer, no more than twice throughout the day. He makes a point of speaking with his two children—ages 7 and 5, with a third on the way—at least twice a day while he’s at the office.

After returning home and spending time with his family, he’ll hit the elliptical machine, then perhaps a game of pool while listening to music. After the 10 p.m. news, it’s time to rest.

Mr. Schechtman’s structured life seems the product of carefully set priorities married with an innate need for intensity. His schedule—which includes long stretches of time spent with his family on weekends, hiking or playing in the house—achieves a balance that allows him to focus completely while working.

That said, like many in the sales game who love what they do, Mr. Schechtman is never completely off the clock. His BlackBerry remains on his person at all times. Time with his family is sacred—almost.

“I have learned to turn [the BlackBerry] off, except for instances where it absolutely must be on and it’s time-sensitive,” he said. “If there’s an orange threat, I will not field it. If we are on DEFCON five on a deal, I will interrupt anything for it at any time. Anything at any time.”

NAIOP former Chapter President Brian Robin (left) turned over leadership duties to 2013 Chapter President Neil Tipograph (right)

The New York City Chapter of NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, today announced the results of its election for 2013 chapter leadership roles. Neil Tipograph, partner at Imowitz Koenig & Co., has been elected to serve as president, having been president-elect in 2012.

The organization has 55 chapters nationwide and about 15,000 members. The New York City chapter – comprised of about 200 members, including Murray Hill Properties’ David Sturner – is its fastest growing.

The organization acts as a networking and educational hub for commercial real estate professionals, as well as a public advocate and lobbyist for the industry on issues that affect it. In 2013, NAIOP will be pushing issues on several different fronts, including some in Albany.

“We are trying to get an extension on the current New York State Brownfield credit program,” Mr. Tipograph said. “We believe that program promoted development and promotes construction jobs and all jobs related to the commercial real estate industry.”

The New York Chapter meets every other month to discuss topics relevant to the local commercial markets. An upcoming issue is the development of technological tools as a means of marketing office space to potential tenants—creating a virtual building, complete with available rooms, to introduce buyers and renters to square footage without having them step into a building. “From your computer you can take a tour of available office space,” Tipograph explained.

Another future issue the organization is watching closely is the development of any tax legislation that could have an adverse effect of the commercial market both nationally and here at home. “I go all the way back to 1986 when the internal revenue code was reformulated under tax reform and it had a very significant effect on the real estate industry from 1986 through the earl ‘90s and it was a negative effect,” Mr. Tipograph said. “We’re going to watch this very closely and make sure that is not repeated.”

Other chapter leaders vaulted to new positions were Jay Fehskens, asset manager of Time Equities, Inc., who will serve as president-elect in 2013; Brian Jauntig, property manager at Monday Properties, has been elected to serve as treasurer in 2013; and Alan Cohen, partner at Cooley LLP, has been elected to serve as secretary.

4 East 46th Street is a six story, vacant building with room to grow.

If the location of the six-story, elevatored office building at 4 East 46^th Street wasn’t enough to pique the interest of a developer on the prowl for Midtown property, the fact that it will be delivered to a buyer vacant (save for grade restaurant space) might. Should that fail, the possibility of controlling over 30,000 square feet of air rights – or undergoing a transformative expansion – would probably do the trick. The asking price for 4 East 46^th Street is $21 million.

The building – held by private owner, Ed Friedman – is 16,115 total square feet but comes with 30,000 square feet of air rights, for a potential 45,000+ square feet after expansion. Eastern Consolidated Principal, David Schechtman, and Associate Director, Steven Zimmerman – who are marketing the property – feel that the best use of the air rights is for the eventual purchaser to undergo an expansion. “This building is only six-and-a-half stories and it lives in a sea of buildings that are much taller,” Mr. Schechtman said.

Should a buyer decline to expand into the sky, those air rights could be worth a minimum of $400 to $500 per square foot to a receiver, he said.

The proposed rezoning of Midtown East could be a boon to the property should it be upzoned, Mr. Schechtman said. “That could only add to the lure of this building--you could make it bigger.”

Messrs. Schechtman and Zimmerman plan to market the building to potential buyers such as educational institutions, venerable institutions, diamond district tenants, corporations and nation states for embassy use. “We’ve been compiling that list for a long time and it’s a work in progress,” Mr. Schechtman said.

The property will be introduced to the larger market of investors for office space, potential conversion to hotel use or other permissive Midtown use.

The cellar, mezzanine and first floor are leased by Vitae, a high-end restaurant that signed a 10-year contract beginning September of 2012.

315 East 115th Street traded for $5.3 million on January 10.

Non profit organization, The Bowery Mission, purchased 315 East 115^th Street for $5.3 million. The 21,390-square-foot building was sold by Palladia Inc., a non-profit which serves families and individuals struggling with substance abuse, homelessness, mental illness, trauma, domestic violence, behavioral health issues, and assists those transitioning from the criminal justice system.

The 50-foot wide, six-story building first hit the market in the second half of the summer and The Bowery Mission closed the deal on January 10, deciding to move in immediately, said David Lebenstein, senior managing director and principal with Cassidy Turley’s Not-For-Profit practice, who represented the owner. Others in the firm who represented the seller include Robair Reichenstein, managing director, principal, and Debra Wollens, vice president.

The marketing process was unique in that zoning stipulated that only another non-profit could acquire the building. Between 15 and 20 organizations were notified about the availability of the building, of which only four showed serious interest. Two finally began bidding for the property, Mr. Lebenstein said. “I wish I had two of those buildings because I would have been able to sell it twice.”

The decision to sell was made because Palladia had used the building for a program it had phased out and chose to sell the building rather than pay to have it altered to facilitate another of its programs. “They made a decision that this was surplus,” Mr. Lebenstein said. The money from the sale will be invested in the organizations other programs and services, he added.

The Bowery Mission – an organization serving the city’s homeless – was attractive to the seller because it had a “strong balance sheet” and was backed by private funding, Mr. Lebenstein said. Bowery Mission did not respond immediately to calls for comment and its representative in the deal, Cornerstone Advisory Services, was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

Mr. Lebenstein worked with Palladia 20 years ago to relocate their headquarters to 10 Astor Place and 740 Broadway, and recently assisted Bowery Mission in the acquisition of two properties in Harlem at 19-21 West 130^th Street.

550 Madison: how will the building's retail and food options evolve?

Changes are in store for the Sony Building, as the Japanese multinational has agreed to a deal trading its iconic New York headquarters at 550 Madison Avenue to the Chetrit Group. But what will become of the building’s retail offerings?

New York retail oracle, Robert K. Futterman, said he sees an enhancement on the way in terms of shopping interest, pushing that section of the midtown neighborhood to seven-day-a-week shopping corridor status. “It’s already a six-day-a-week,” he told The Commercial Observer. “Saturdays are busy.”

Other retailers along Madison Avenue’s Midtown shopping strip could choose to make the leap to the building’s space to escape high rents on the avenue, Mr. Futterman said.

Douglas Elliman Retail Group Chairman, Faith Hope Consolo, whose own office at 575 Madison faces the Sony Building, agrees that the area has become an attraction for shoppers. “Now it it’s very developed and caters to tourists on the weekends and the workforce during the week.”

Retail rents in the neighborhood are about $500 per square foot and very likely to rise dramatically over the next couple of years, she said. “The traffic’s been so enhanced and these two streets – 55^th and 56^th – are like cross town streets,” she said.

Most of the retail in the building is relatively middle of the road retailers, not luxury offerings. That is a trend that may or may not continue. “I’m not sure I see luxury at this point but who knows in three years,” Ms. Consolo said. The presence of the nearby Peninsula and St. Regis hotels could be an additional boon for traffic.

The building could take a page out of the Time Warner Building’s book, or even that of 666 Fifth Avenue, in making the building’s individual retailers more street accessible. “Right now you can only enter through the lobby of the building,” Ms. Consolo said. “The doorways are only through the walk-through. Although there are display windows wrapping the whole block, there’s no street access so you have to go into the building.”

Another wise addition would be another large restaurant, Ms. Consolo said. “This neighborhood, right here in these four blocks, lacks for good restaurants until you get west of Fifth and East of Park.” A restaurant like Michael’s or one of Danny Meyer’s brasserie-type offerings might be ideal, she said.

“When we discuss these upper echelon cuisines and food groups I think the most frequent answer you’ll get will be a steak house or a high end Japanese restaurant,” said Joshua Siegelman, associate director with Winick Realty Group. “Something that’s going to cater to these high net worth individuals and a dense tourist quarter.”

De rigueur among New York’s dynamic business players are high end, vivacious restaurants with an unstuffy atmosphere and air of ‘hipsternity,’ for lack of a better word.  Examples of this new taste could be Lexington Brass, at 517 Lexington Avenue, from EMM Group. “The EMM Group, in particular with this concept, does a good job of putting together a trendy and upscale environment where cool meets good cuisine,” said Mr. Siegelman.

Another example would be STK steakhouse at 1114 Avenue of the Americas, by The ONE Group. “It’s another great example of where these guys have brought in the ‘cool’ factor to an upscale cuisine, versus you prototypical Capital Grille,” he said.

Another boon to the soon-to-be-former Sony building, or its immediate neighborhood, would be an Eataly-type offering, “Somewhere where users could purchase food and sit down and enjoy the cuisine,” Mr. Siegelman said. “I think if you had something like that there it would uplift that little corridor.”

The retail space that stands today at 550 Madison is a far cry from its days as the AT&T Building, Ms. Consolo said. “There was really nothing,” she explained. “All of these buildings have the same issue: they have this interior atrium which is open to the public. What happens is it becomes a hang-out. They really had no success in getting any real retail.”

Sony’s revamp of the ground floor allowed for storefront space. “The corridor is so dramatically different than it was even five years ago and it’s developed.”

HarperCollins has leased 180,000 square feet at 195 Broadway.

Publishing monolith, HarperCollins, signed 180,000-square-foot lease at 195 Broadway. The 15-year lease, signed January 25, will give the company four-and-a-half floors of the 1 million+ square foot building.

“Coming as it does on the heels of the recent Conde Nast signing at 1 World Trade Center, this becomes a very significant and transformative leasing transaction that bodes well for the continued resurgence of the downtown marketplace,” said David Levinson, CEO of L&L Holding Company, which owns the building in partnership with Beacon Capital Partners. The landlord initially asked $47 per square foot for the space.

L&L would not discuss options attached to the lease that would give HarperCollins the option to expand its footprint in the future. The tenant expects to begin relocating from its current Midtown offices at 10 East 53^rd Street in the spring of 2014.

CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe, Ken Rapp and Christopher Mansfield represented the publishing house in the transaction while the landlord was represented in-house by L&L’s David Berkey and Andrew Wiener. Neither CBRE nor L&L responded to requests for comment following the announcement of the deal. HarperCollins did not respond to a call for comment by press time.

The building, designed by William Welles Bosworth and built in 1916, is located just east of the World Trade Center area and Path train; and west of the 2, 3,4, 5, J, Z, A and C subway lines. It has 29 floors, each consisting of an average 40,000+ square feet of space.

The building once served as the New York headquarters of AT&T. Advertising agency, Omnicom Group, leased a floor this past summer, taking 39,347 square feet of space. The company initially leased 180,000 square feet in the building in 2007 and now has a 260,000-square-foot footprint there. Other tenants include media companies Thomson Reuters Markets and The Knot Inc.

L&L Holdings owns several other city buildings in its portfolio, including 200 Fifth Avenue, 150 Fifth Avenue and The Metropolitan Tower at 142 West 57^th Street, among others.

An adult daycare center has landed at 1325 Fifth Avenue, leasing 7,000 square feet of grade space..

The Fifth Avenue Social Adult Day Care Center has leased 7,000 square feet of grade space at 1325 Fifth Avenue.

The 10-year lease closed in late December and negotiated to mid $40s per square foot.

The building, a six-story structure between 111th and 112th streets, is the first of its kind in Manhattan and part of a national trend of social adult day services centers offering comprehensive programs to seniors, including those who are functionally impaired. Local residents will be able to visit and socialize, said the center’s manager, Jack Shteynberg.

The space, which Mr. Shteynberg and the center have occupied since January 1, is undergoing renovation and will open for clients by April, he said.

Most of the center’s clients will live within walking distance, and transportation is provided for others who cannot make the trip, he said. There are other such centers in New Jersey, the Bronx and Brooklyn, Mr. Shteynberg said. In searching for a new spot, center officials chose to look exclusively in Harlem.

Douglas Elliman’s retail team-–Chairman Faith Consolo, Executive Vice President Joseph Aquino and Arthur Maglio-– represented the tenant and the landlord, Tahl Propp Equities. The search took about a month, and center officials visited approximately five locations before settling on 1325 Fifth Avenue.

“It just so happened that I had a property that was tailor made to exactly what his criteria was,” Mr. Maglio said.

The neighborhood is a mix of low income housing and luxury condominiums, Mr. Maglio said. “It’s really an interesting mix, in terms of residents.”

“With the country’s aging demographic, adult day care is a greatly needed service and we are delighted to be able to introduce it in Manhattan,” said Ms. Consolo. “Unlike many of the others, this particular model has an active social line up, with exercise classes, game room with pool table, hair salon, TV room, kitchen and even Internet café and library.”