A decade ago, a walk down Fifth Avenue near 17th Street would have included a stop at advertising firm Geer DuBois, and a walk farther north on Park Avenue South would have culminated in a visit to Angelo & Maxie’s Steakhouse.
Both were pioneering tenants, willing to take a chance on the less desirable precincts of Midtown South—and both are gone. Read More
L&L Holding Company’s development of 425 Park Avenue may be the company’s current marquee project, but the firm, which chairman and CEO David Levinson co-founded with Robert Lapidus in 2000, continues to make a mark on Midtown South. In January, L&L purchased 114 Fifth Avenue in a $165 million joint venture, planning to model it after 200 Fifth Avenue, a thriving symbol of Midtown South’s bull real estate market. Mr. Levinson, 64, who owns a stake in the New York Yankees, spoke with The Commercial Observer about Midtown South, the threat of bomb attacks and the Bronx Bombers. Read More
Giorgio Armani is getting a view over the High Line. The Italian fashion company has inked a lease for a 60,000-square-foot space at 450 West 15th Street in the Meatpacking District, sources familiar with the transaction confirmed to The Commercial Observer, and is due to move its headquarters and showroom to the space in October 2013. Read More
Speeches were casually ignored, drinks were spilled and bonds were formed at last Thursday’s 116th annual Real Estate Board of New York Gala, which this year drew an estimated 2,000 brokers, owners, advertising buyers and real estate reporters to the New York Hilton for an evening of conviviality, honorifics and hushed deal making. Among the fray was Commercial Observer staff writer Daniel Geiger, who during the course of the evening saw his stenopad tossed by an irate real estate broker and who unabashedly accosted Studley’s Woody Heller in the hotel’s bathroom, all for the sake of the story. Below, a timeline of gala comings and goings, from the innocuous gossip down to the downright obnoxious. Read More
The owners of 114 Fifth Avenue are exploring a sale of the building or a possible leasehold interest in the property sources say.
The approximately 340,000-square-foot midtown south building is held by an anonymous family owner, people familiar with the property said. The building will likely require a substantial infusion of cash in the near future, a factor that is perhaps prompting the offering.
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