By Billy Gray 4/09 3:43pm

Lease Beat

AppNexus's existing office on the fifth floor of 28-40 West 23rd Street.

AppNexus Extends, Expands to Total 220,000 Square Feet at 28-40 West 23rd Street

AppNexus signed a 10-year lease extension and expansion that will give the advertising technology platform a 220,000-square-foot footprint at 28-40 West 23rd Street.

The company’s latest lease for 220,000 square feet–130,000 square feet of it an expansion–in the Flatiron District tower comes nine months after a 24,500-square-foot expansion. AppNexus arrived at the 600,000-square-foot tower about three years ago, initially signing for 24,500 square feet.

Mark Weiss and Rob Eisenberg of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented the tenant. Michael Cohen and Andrew Roos of Colliers International, who are both part owners of the building, represented the landlords. Read More

By Al Barbarino 3/05 7:30am

Lease Beat

750 Third Avenue

Accounting Firm EisnerAmper Amps Things Up at 750 Third Avenue

Accounting firm EisnerAmper has signed a lease renewal and expansion at 750 Third Avenue, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The eight-year lease solidified the firm’s existing 138,000 square feet across floors 13 through 17 and 21, while adding 12,000 square feet on the 22nd floor.

“They have a dynamic, growing practice,” said Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Vice Chairman Mark Weiss, who represented the tenant with Rob Eisenberg and Robert Emden.

“It’s a good building, near Grand Central and with great functionality – and the landlord has been very reliable,” he added, referring to SL Green Realty Corp. Read More

By Al Barbarino 3/04 1:21pm

Sales Beat

Joe Chetrit (DNAinfo/Mathew Katz)

Joseph Chetrit and Partners Sling $150 M. at Former Cabrini Medical Center Site

Joseph Chetrit is in contract to purchase the 1.5-acre former Cabrini Medical Center site at Second Avenue and East 19th Street, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The Chetrit Group and its partners have agreed to pay more than $150 million for the five-building complex owned by Memorial Sloan-Kettering, sources familiar with the deal confirmed with The Commercial Observer.

The Journal noted that Mr. Chetrit is purchasing the property with the same group of investors that he bought the Sony Building with, which included David Bistricer and put the man at the helm of Clipper Equities on the map among commercial real estate’s elite. Read More

By Al Barbarino 3/01 10:07am

Lease Beat

David_Shankbone

Law firm Goetz Fitzpatrick Inks 17,600 SF Lease at 1 Penn Plaza

Law firm Goetz Fitzpatrick has signed 12-year renewal and expansion at 1 Penn Plaza, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The construction and commercial litigation firm moves from its 13,000-square-foot space on the 44th floor to 17,600 square feet on the 31st floor as part of the firm’s ongoing growth plan.

The firm has been in the building, owned and operated by New York-based real estate investment trust Vornado Realty Trust, since the 1970’s, brokers said.

“The Firm’s practice areas are all doing well, which supports their recent growth,” said Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Mark Weiss, who represented the law firm with Robert Eisenberg.  “It’s a great building and there’s a long history there between the tenant and the landlord.” Read More

By Al Barbarino 1/24 12:40pm

Lease Beat

The Arch Atop 570 Lexington Avenue (Credit: nyc-architecture.com)

Law Firm Fabiani Cohen & Hall LLP Renews and Expands at 570 Lexington Avenue

Construction and insurance litigation firm Fabiani Cohen & Hall LLP has signed a renewal and expansion for 24,000 square feet of space at 570 Lexington Avenue, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The firm will retain the 4th floor and expand into and 3rd floor, sources familiar with the deal said.

Mark Weiss, a vice president at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, represented the tenant with Robert Silver and Robert Eisenberg.  The brokers declined comment. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 10/05/12 6:05pm

Lease Beat

Courtesy of Sports Illustrated

Bernie Madoff Lipstick Building Office Filled

Bernie Madoff’s old office space is fast getting filled.

Goulston & Storrs, a law firm, just signed a deal for 19,270 square feet at 885 Third Avenue, taking the 34-story building’s entire 18th floor for rents in the $70s per square foot.

Scott Klau, who is part of an agency from the brokerage Newmark Grubb Knight Frank that handles deals Read More

By Carl Gaines 9/12/12 7:30am

New Developments

Mark Weiss.

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Brokers City University Land Swap

The New York City Department of Sanitation has initiated what amounts to a land-swap with the City University of New York and the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center that will allow for the development of a new outpatient cancer center and a consolidated location for CUNY Hunter College’s health and basic sciences campuses.

Mark Weiss, Justin DiMare and Howard Kesseler from Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented MSKCC in its $215 million purchase of the 66,000-square-foot parcel of land at 525 East 73rd Street that will be the site for the development. The spot was previously the home of a New York City Department of Sanitation garage facility, which was demolished in 2008 to allow for the construction of a new facility. That project never got off the ground and in 2011 the New York City Economic Development Corporation issued a Request for Proposals for its sale and development. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 7/10/12 5:00pm

Lease Beat

601 Lexington Avenue

After Signaling It Will Dump $22 Billion Of CRE, Blackstone Grabs Citadel Space

The Blackstone Group, which today signaled it would sell off much of its portfolio of U.S. office properties, has leased a floor high in 601 Lexington Avenue from investment firm Citadel Group.

Blackstone will take the building’s entire 48th floor in the deal, a 31,000-square-foot space, for five years, which is the remaining term on Citadel’s lease at the property.

The location is convenient for Blackstone, which has its world headquarters just a block away at 345 Park Avenue. The company, according to sources, plans to the use the floor for a division involved in technology within the company, though the details of its occupancy could not be learned by press time. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 2/14/12 12:30pm

Lease of the Week

Something's a-brewing at 622 Broadway.

Take-Two Interactive Throws Another Coin in the Slot at 622 Broadway

When Take-Two Interactive, the video game giants behind such popular and violently lurid titles as Grand Theft Auto and  Max Payne, had a few years remaining on its lease at 622 Broadway, the landlord, Yuco Management, found itself in a curious position.

Should Yuco Management aggressively market the 69,000 square feet of space Take-Two had called its own since 2002, thereby losing its anchor tenant? Or should it do anything it could to keep Take-Two, which had in some ways branded 622 Broadway as a distinctly hip and colorful office building, especially with its endless parade of behooded video game designers and executives?

“It’s the unique building where people don’t wear suits and ties and ride bicycles to work with their dogs,” said William Cohen, an executive vice president and principal at Newmark Knight Frank, who was hired alongside colleague Mark Weiss by Yuco Management to help decide the next best move. “I’m not kidding,” Read More

By Daniel Geiger 2/07/12 11:00am

Lease Beat

1211 Avenue of the Americas.

In Law Firm Switch, Ropes & Gray Sublease to Grais & Ellsworth

The law firm Ropes & Gray has completed a deal to sublease one of its floors at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, the large midtown office tower where it has its New York headquarters.

Ropes & Gray is subleasing the building’s 41,500-square-foot 32nd floor to the law firm Grais & Ellsworth for seven years. Asking rent for the space was in the $50s per square foot. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 10/12/09 8:04pm

The Peacock Slayer

When Country-Wide Insurance Company chose to renew its lease in Lower Manhattan last month, the move was shepherded by a close ally.

The lengthy search, which steered the insurance behemoth to Brooklyn and other exotic locales before ending right where it started, was the culmination of a 20-year relationship with Mark Weiss, vice chairman of Read More