Steve Wiktoff paced back and forth in a conference room at his partnership’s New York City office, eager to talk about his latest endeavors, but just as eager to tackle the other 10 commitments that had come his way over the course of the first of several interviews with The Mortgage Observer. Read More
In the face of one of the worst natural disasters in the city’s history, commercial real estate landlords braced for Hurricane Sandy, employing every measure possible to hold property damage to a minimum and keep tenants safe.
But not even prophetic foresight could have allowed the city’s landlords—or New York City as a whole—to prevent much of the destruction that the mammoth storm wreaked across the five boroughs.
The road to recovery, especially in low-lying coastal areas like Staten Island, Coney Island and the Rockaways, will take months, if not years. Lower Manhattan went dark for days, with many companies largely shutting down due to power outages and salt water flooding, which is especially corrosive to mechanical equipment.
“It’s—It’s—It’s just a mess,” said Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for the Durst Organization, who struggled to find words to describe the destruction in Lower Manhattan. Read More
Gary Barnett continues to bulldoze his way across the city. Just last week, his Extell Development unveiled plans for a new tower at Riverside South; found a partner for a stalled 50-story hotel near Times Square; and secured $700 million in financing from Abu Dhabi toward One57, the condo-hotel tower on West 57th Street that will be the tallest, and likely most expensive, when it is completed. As if that were not enough, the developer has begun work just down the block on another of its long-simmering projects. Read More
Fifteen Central Park West, be worried. Very worried.
Today, The New York Times reports on Gary Barnett’s long-fallow hole on West 57th Street, across from Carnegie Hall, which, now that he has some big Middle Eastern backers, he is turning into the city’s tallest, and perhaps most expensive, condo project. The price for Read More
The fight over Trump City is about to have a reprise.
Extell Development’s planned 2,500-apartment development on the westernmost portion of the Upper West Side is slated to start the city’s seven-month rezoning process Monday. This sets into motion debate over the future of the last parcel of the larger Riverside South development, a Read More
Extell Development’s skyscraper planned for 57th Street and Broadway will face a big test Tuesday, as the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is set to decide the fate of two connected buildings built by the B.F. Goodrich Company in 1909.
Just what that fate will be is unclear to many involved, a rare twist with a Read More
There’s a rule of thumb that applies to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission: The agency shouldn’t try to designate a building a landmark against its owner’s will unless the commission’s ready for a loud public skirmish. And, generally in the Bloomberg administration, the commission has steered clear of such battles, making for relatively few such Read More
