By Al Barbarino 4/10 8:00am

New Developments

51 ASTOR

Waiting on a Dream: Betting on ‘Spec’ at 51 Astor Place

The dark glass walls lining 51 Astor Place are modernistic, if not futuristic. Some critics have claimed that its developer’s asking rents, at upward of $115 a foot, are from the future too.

Others have argued that Edward Minskoff took a gamble in erecting the structure without an anchor tenant—a so-called “spec tower.”

But for Mr. Minskoff, who has developed close to 37 million square feet of property in 10 cities around the country—maintaining patience as a virtue—the term takes on a positive connotation.

“A spec tower means that we started the development with the confidence that if you build it they will come, and with the confidence necessary to lease the building,” Mr. Minskoff told The Commercial Observer.  “If you’re going to plan a building and you don’t start it until a tenant comes walking along, you can be sitting on the dirt for 10 years.” Read More

By Al Barbarino 12/27/12 9:15pm

Lease Beat

microsoft_logo1

Microsoft Inks 3rd Biggest Deal of 2012

Months of negotiations between SPJ Properties and Microsoft have finally paid off, with the tech giant signing a 230,000-square-foot lease at its new Midtown headquarters at 11 Times Square – and solidifying one of the top leasing deals of the year.

The company eyed the new space for months, as rumors swirled it would be vacating Vornado’s 1290 Avenue of the Americas, and last month transaction is the third biggest non-renewal leasing transaction of 2012. Read More

By Al Barbarino 11/16/12 11:47am

Lease Beat

microsoft_logo

Negotiations Over Signage Delay Microsoft Deal

Negotiations over outdoor signage at 11 Times Square, among other issues, has delayed a deal between SPJ Properties and Microsoft expected today, sources told The Commercial Observer.

After eyeing the space for months, the company was shuffling papers around this week with owner SPJ Properties to get the deal completed; but the signing of a letter of intent, which sources said was scheduled to happen today, likely won’t be completed until after Thanksgiving, said people familiar with the deal.

The 16-year lease is for 260,000 square feet across floors four through 11, at a rate in the low $60’s, a broker who reviewed a preliminary version of the lease said. Read More

By Matt Chaban and Daniel Geiger 9/04/12 5:12pm

Lease Beat

Microsofties.

Talk About Windows! Microsoft Poised to Sign 400,000-Square-Foot Lease at 11 Times Square

Steven J. Pozycki has reeled in his white whale as one of the most sought after tenants in the entire city has landed at one of its most troubled office towers. According to numerous sources, Microsoft is poised to sign a long-term lease for 400,000 square feet at 11 Times Square, the office tower Mr. Pozycki’s New Jersey-based SJP Properties built just as the real estate bubble was bursting.

For months, the Seattle-based software company has been looking at new offices in New York as it mulled whether or not to leave its current home at 1290 Avenue of the Americas. Microsoft had been looking at space across Manhattan, but it seemed to have a special affinity for the West Side, having strongly considered Mort Zuckerman‘s swiftly rising 250 West 55th Street. For a time, Microsoft appeared interested in 11 Times Square but its focus faded in favor of other opportunities, until a last minute pitch by SJP brought the building back into the running and helped seal the deal. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 8/15/12 11:55am

The Lobby

Rob Lowe

C&W Promotes 11 Brokers

Cushman & Wakefield promoted a group of top producing leasing dealmakers the company announced this morning.

Eleven brokers were named vice chairmen at the firm, its highest executive title for brokerage professionals.

Michael Burgio, Joseph Cabrera, Samuel Clark, Louis D’Avanzo, Augustus Field, Gary Greenspan, Jay Hruska, Robert Lowe, Stuart Romanoff, Dale Schlather and Fred Smith were the brokers awarded the promotion according to a release issued by C&W. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 7/24/12 5:00pm

Lease Beat

Edward Minskoff, Nancy Kelley, Mayor Bloomberg and Dave Sabey

NY Genome Center Completes 170K S/F Deal

The New York Genome Center has signed a 20-year, 170,000-square-foot lease at Edward Minskoff’s 101 Avenue of the Americas to establish the largest genetic sequencing facility in the city.

Mayor Bloomberg, who was on hand at a press conference held at the Hudson Square building this morning to announce the deal, said the lease was evidence of how biotech and life sciences companies were moving to the city and helping to diversify the local economy. Read More

By Michael Ewing 5/14/12 9:00am

Lease Beat

100 Wall Street (Courtesy of Commercial Short Sale)

Savanna’s 100 Wall Street Welcomes Blackwall Capital

Blackwall Capital Markets has signed a lease for Savanna’s 100 Wall Street in the Financial District.

The consulting firm specializing in life insurance and financial planning has signed a lease for a 4,343 square foot portion of the eleventh floor in the historic building. The lease was set for eight years.

Mitch Konsker, Scott Cahaly, Read More

By Daniel Geiger 5/03/12 6:37pm

Lawsuits

Mitch Konsker

Mitch Konsker, Former Top Cushman Team, Sues Firm Over Commissions

A high profile leasing team in the city is accusing its former firm of cheating it out of millions of dollars worth of commissions.

The group of leasing executives, Mitch Konsker, Paul Glickman, Matt Astrachan, Alex Chudnoff and Mitti Liebersohn, allege in a lawsuit filed yesterday in State Supreme Court that Cushman & Wakefield owes the team at least $4 million in unpaid compensation, though the complaint doesn’t specify the exact amount. Read More

By Michael Ewing 4/16/12 9:30am

Lease Beat

100 Wall Street

100 Wall Street Welcomes Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection

A global speciality insurer and reinsurer, Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company, signed a new lease at Savanna’s 100 Wall Street.

The firm was found in 1866 as the “first company in America devoted primarily to industrial safety.” Over the 145 years of service, the firm has grown its inspection force to over 1,200 engineers, inspectors Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 4/03/12 9:30am

The Sit-Down

Mitti Liebersohn.

Jones Lang LaSalle’s Mitti Liebersohn on the First Quarter, Downtown and Beyond

When Mitch Konsker, Matt Astrachan, Alexander Chudnoff, Paul Glickman and Mitti Liebersohn departed Cushman & Wakefield for Jones Lang LaSalle last January, the aftershock was palpable. Noting that it had been the second major defection from Cushman in as many months, one broker described the team as rock stars and suggested that the brokerage firms they worked for not so much paid their wages as orbited their personalities. Now one year later, with much of the hoopla gone, Mr. Liebersohn spoke with The Commercial Observer about his past 12 months at Jones Lang LaSalle, the reasons behind weak first-quarter results, and what to expect in the second quarter. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 1/24/12 11:08am

Postings

1173 REBNY 116th Annual Banquet, 1.19.12

Walking the REBNY Ballroom: Hungry Brokers, Angry Lapidus

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