A seven-foot dolphin appeared at the head of the Gowanus Canal earlier this year, ailing and struggling to work its way out of the abysmally polluted waters, as crowds of onlookers rallied for the survival of the dying (spoiler alert) marine mammal.
And so it’s without wonderment that some local residents are worried that the excavation Read More
After the storm, things are looking brighter for the lower Manhattan real estate market.
Even with construction scaffolds clogging the district’s narrow streets in a reminder of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation, Downtown office leasing activity jumped 73 percent in the first two months of the year, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Read More
Stephanie Urbanski is the global real estate sector resident and assurance senior manager at Ernst & Young. Boasting a decade of experience at the Big Four firm, Ms. Urbanski is a lead member of the real estate accounting team. She spoke with The Commercial Observer last week about financial accounting issues impacting the commercial real estate industry, potential future changes to financial reporting practices and the risks of another bubble in the market.
The announcement last week that Liberty Mutual had signed a 10-year, 120,000-square-foot lease at 55 Water Street was a rare and welcome piece of good news at a building and corridor of lower Manhattan exceptionally hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy.
The 53-story Financial District skyscraper took on 32 million gallons of water following the October 29 natural disaster. A month later, 30 people were treated for injuries after the basement caught fire during electric repair work. News that Liberty Mutual would be doubling its footprint in the property no doubt came as a relief to the landlord, New Water Street Corp., as it poured $200 million worth of renovations into the ailing tower.
The woes of the building at 55 Water Street are emblematic of those afflicting Manhattan commercial properties affected by Sandy. Accounting firms working on their behalf as they seek damages are all too familiar with the sort of cascading problems wrought by the storm that require a web of insurance plans and clauses spanning wind, flood, blackout and business interruption insurance. Read More
Lower Manhattan is “back in business,” according to a report from the Downtown Alliance that charts the unprecedented response to the devastation that Hurricane Sandy wreaked just over four months ago.
The data shows that 99 percent of office and residential space, 96 percent of hotel inventory and 90 percent of retail stores are online; while the group said leasing was unfazed.
“Lower Manhattan’s recovery from Sandy has been vigorous,” said Downtown Alliance President Elizabeth Berger, in a statement. “The Downtown Alliance’s research shows dramatic improvement across of all of Lower Manhattan’s major markets.” Read More
The city announced today that it is implementing new measures that will stretch current zoning codes in order to help property owners update buildings to meet new flood standards in the wake of Hurricane Sandy — and in the face of climate change.
The measures will allow home and building owners to rebuild destroyed properties and meet new safety standards. They are also intended to limit the cost of future federal flood insurance premiums by better protecting properties in flood-prone areas.
“We are beginning the process of updating our building code and zoning regulations so that new construction meets standards that reflect the best available data about flood and climate risks,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a statement. “This is particularly important for homes and businesses damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy – and the rules we are putting in place today will enable them to rebuild and re-open safely.” Read More
The new year ushered in a shaken-up hierarchy to the Real Estate Board of New York.
Tishman Speyer President Rob Speyer has replaced Mary Ann Tighe as chairman. Mr. Speyer, 43, is the youngest chairman in the board’s 117-year history, and will inherit the position from the first female to ever hold it. Despite his youth, Mr. Speyer has history on his side: he’s the third generation of his family to be named REBNY chair.
Mr. Speyer’s combination of youth and lineage is well-suited to an organization that in 2012 faced fresh, modern challenges whose resolutions required the full weight of the influence REBNY has accrued over the past century. Hurricane Sandy caused unprecedented damage to coastal areas of the city and its transportation system, not to mention the related electric grid failure. And while major storms are nothing new, they seem on course to increase in size and frequency. Read More
Broker confidence levels have been restored after a dip caused by Hurricane Sandy, but commercial brokers remain less optimistic than their residential counterparts, according to data from REBNY’s Broker Confidence Index released last week.
At 8.12 in December 2012, based on a scale of zero to ten, the average confidence rating for commercial and residential brokers combined was the second highest since REBNY began tracking the data in June 2012 (with the record of 8.55 set in September 2012).
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the rating had dipped to 7.55 in November. Read More
Manhattan-based retail real estate specialist Winick Realty Group is going west. Winick opened its first New Jersey office in early November of last year, with senior vice presidents and founding co-partners Daniel Spector, a 25-year real estate veteran, and Tyler Bennett, with a decade of industry experience, at the helm.
With nine tenants and several exclusive arrangements with prominent landlords already secured, Messrs. Spector and Bennett are optimistic about Winick Realty Group NJ’s prospects in 2013. The Commercial Observer spoke with the partners in Winick’s Midtown office about their incipient developments, the aftereffects of Sandy and Garden State idiosyncrasies.
You both focused on New Jersey real estate before the Winick office opened. What drew you to the market?
Tyler Bennett: I’m a lifelong New Jersey resident, so knowing the market and having done most of my transactions there, it made sense.
Daniel Spector: I’m originally a New Yorker. I was working in a firm that represented retailers in Long Island, including Blockbuster Video. I was helping them expand in New York City and New Jersey. I started doing a lot of work in New Jersey, and after a couple years of commuting over two bridges, I decided that maybe I should move there, as hard as it was for a New Yorker.
TB: [Laughs] Are you moving back?
DS: It’s not too bad, actually.
The whirlwind negotiations between the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Muss Development to create an impromptu relief outpost in Queens in the days following Hurricane Sandy’s descent on New York would not have happened had it not been for one of the real estate industry’s leading dynasties.
In a deal that would later come to symbolize the overall dedication of the city’s real estate titans, government officials and executives banged out terms for 200,000 square feet of temporary space at the Forest Hills Tower in a mere five days, a minor miracle in the world of office leasing. Read More
Just when New York’s traditional geographic dividing lines were beginning to seem quaint, Hurricane Sandy made landfall and brought them back to light.
Downtown, which over the years had become harder and harder to distinguish from uptown, was plunged into darkness, sending the relatively young and vaguely creative well above 14th Street nosebleed territory in search of power. Only the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge stayed illuminated, a stark metaphor for the borough’s slow transformation into a contender.
But in commercial real estate, boundaries continued to disappear. In January, Condé Nast expanded its 1.05-million-square-foot lease at 1 World Trade Center by 138,773 square feet, helping lower Manhattan shed its stodgy finance-centric reputation and prompting slight panic among the owners of Midtown media canteens like Michael’s. Read More
Brookfield Office Properties was forced to gut the 31,000-square-foot, sub-level retail concourse at One New York Plaza after severe flooding brought on by Hurricane Sandy destroyed it, and now the commercial real estate owner plans to rebuild the space and bring new tenants in, The Commercial Observer has learned.
The estimated 23-million-gallons of water that flooded the lower levels of the building were removed within a week of the storm’s touchdown on the southern tip of Manhattan.
But as of Monday night, multiple giant yellow heating ducts resembling something from an alien horror flick continued to pump warm air into the building’s retail center – The Plaza Shops – amid the rumbling of temporary generators. Read More
A consortium of legal groups is pleading with a city judge to extend the moratorium on post-Sandy evictions that was lifted yesterday.
The group of 19 organizations, led by MFY Legal Services, sent a letter to Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern Fisher yesterday asking that she extend the moratorium until Jan. 1.
“We were dismayed to learn that, less than a month after Hurricane Sandy hit, the moratorium on residential evictions is being lifted,” the letter states. “With the city’s infrastructure still reeling, we respectfully request that you reconsider lifting the moratorium.” Read More
One New York Plaza is officially open again – as of this past Saturday – following a shutdown due to tropical storm Sandy. Building owner, Brookfield Office Properties, said that the company has property, casualty and flood insurance and anticipates full coverage of losses. “The storm will have no material financial impact on the company,” the firm said as part of a release.
Hurricane Sandy caused a surge that increased ocean water levels and flooded numerous coastal areas of New York City, including the southern tip of Manhattan where One New York Plaza is located.
“Brookfield’s property operations and maintenance personnel removed all water, restored services and prepared the building for the safe return of tenants,” a Brookfield spokesperson said. Read More
On Thursday, Nov. 1, Virgo Business Centers made 27,321 square feet of temporary, furnished office space available at 14 Penn Plaza. Companies displaced by Hurricane Sandy filed in one by one, and by the following Thursday, the space was full.
“Typically, that process takes about a year,” said Pasha Erkin, director of sales at the company. “It’s all about readiness. You could literally bring me 40 people today, and I could have the space ready tomorrow. All you have to do is walk in, flip on a switch, plug in and start working.”
In that building alone, the company took on 177 employees from displaced companies like Coronet, amfAR, Linda Decorato, Ambrose and others located on the eastern tip of Downtown and other areas hit hard by the hurricane. Read More
