By Gus Delaporte 3/27 7:30am

Retail

times-square-theatre

REBNY Issues Call for Submissions for Retail Deal of the Year Awards

The Real Estate Board of New York has opened the submission process for the Retail Deal of the Year Awards, it was announced yesterday. The awards recognize the most creative and significant retail deals in New York City.

Submissions for the awards are due April 25. Winners will be announced at the REBNY Retail Committee’s Deal of the Year cocktail party on June 11.

“It’s certainly the most prestigious award given in our business,” Peter Braus, retail committee chair at REBNY, told The Commercial Observer. “As retail has gotten to be more of a factor in New York real estate, it has gotten to be quite the market prestige to win the award.” Read More

By Al Barbarino 12/12/12 8:00am

Sales Beat

309 West 57th Street

Apartment Building, Former Church, Music Legend Hangout Nets $42.5M

A property at 309 West 57th Street in Midtown West that once housed a Victorian Gothic church and later saw the likes of John Lennon and Frank Sinatra pass through its doors has changed hands for $42.5 million.

The 16-story, 75,600-square-foot rental property with 102 apartments and nearly 14,000 square feet of commercial space – currently home to night club Providence NYC – was purchased by New York City-based real estate investment firms Imperium Capital and Bronstein Properties.

The property, site of a former church and later a prominent recording studio, is located near a number of popular amenities and development projects, and it’s the latest in a string of high-profile acquisitions made by Imperium Capital. Read More

By Al Barbarino 12/06/12 7:15am

On the Market

350 West Broadway

SoHo Retail Condominum at 350 West Broadway Could Rake in $30M

Jones Lang LaSalle has been retained as the exclusive leasing agent for the marketing and sale of the 11,115-square-foot retail condominium on the first two floors of a luxury residential building at 350 West Broadway in SoHo, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The two-story jewel box retail store is located in one of SoHo’s prime retail centers, between Grand and Broome Streets, with 80 feet of frontage along West Broadway.  The space also features an exclusive, 1,500-square-foot terrace area. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 8/14/12 7:45am

Power Broker

Jeff Rosenblatt.

Phoenix Rising: Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Jeff Rosenblatt, Post Kent Swig

It didn’t take long for Jeff Rosenblatt to sense something awry in the house of Kent Swig.

It was 2009 and Mr. Swig, at the time a large landlord in the city, had purchased the real estate services company Helmsley-Spear a year earlier. In the months after his big acquisition of the legendary brokerage firm, Mr. Swig had offered Mr. Rosenblatt a senior position managing its leasing operations. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 7/10/12 7:15am

The Sit-Down

Andrew Goldberg.

Andrew Goldberg, Broker Behind Trump Tower’s Gucci Deal, Thinks Retail is Ready to Splurge on the West Side.

Andrew Goldberg is a retail executive at CBRE, where he is one of the firm’s top brokers, representing both landlords and tenants. With Nordstrom’s deal on 57th Street, retail leasing has been the talk of the town. Of course, Mr. Goldberg is no stranger to big-time leasing deals, having brokered Gucci’s 50,000-square-foot flagship at Trump Tower in 2006, one of the most valuable retail deals ever done in Manhattan. Mr. Goldberg spoke with The Commercial Observer recently about last month’s huge Nordstrom deal, the Drake development site, Gucci and Westfield’s plans for the World Trade Center. Read More

By Carl Gaines 6/29/12 1:08pm

Nordstrom-a-rama

Derek Trulson

Nordstrom and Extell Development: Patience is a Virtue

It turns out that patience is virtue for both Nordstrom and Extell Development. When the retailer announced Thursday that it would be opening a 285,000-square-foot, 7-story store at 225 West 57th Street some time in 2018, it represented the culmination of ten to 15 years of searching. Meanwhile, developer Gary Barnett had been quietly assembling the parcel where the store will open for almost a decade.

In the end, the deal was pulled off thanks to a team from Jones Lang LaSalle, the firm’s Derek Trulson telling The Commercial Observer that real estate expertise, not retail expertise, paved the way. Read More

By Carl Gaines 6/28/12 2:11pm

retail beat

nordstrom-logo-wallpaper

Details on Nordstrom’s 225 West 57th Street Location

On the heels of The Commercial Observer’s report yesterday about all signs pointing to Nordtrom taking space at Extell Development’s project at 225 West 57th Street, the company said today that it has now finalized those plans. The store is projected to open in 2018 and excavation work could begin by the first quarter of 2013. When it opens, it will be the retailer’s New York flagship, and its first full-line store in the city. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 6/26/12 5:28pm

retail beat

Gary Barnett

Nordstrom Will Open at 225 West 57th

Sources say Nordstrom is in talks to anchor a development project that Gary Barnett would build at 225 West 57th Street.

Rumors have swirled for months that Mr. Barnett, one of the city’s most prolific and successful builders of residential and commercial real estate, is trying to arrange a transaction with the department store, which has been cruising around Manhattan for a site for years. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 6/04/12 2:34pm

Barnettiquette

One 57

Nordstrom in Talks with Barnett, One57

As Gary Barnett’s new residential tower One 57 continues to rise over Central Park – not to mention all of its neighbors – rumors continue to circulate in the city’s brokerage industry that Mr. Barnett is lining up a huge retail deal befitting the property.

Several sources familiar with the project say that Nordstrom, the Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 4/10/12 1:36pm

Retail Lease Beat

1095 Avenue of the Americas (photo courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield)

UPDATE: Nordstrom Rack Eyeing 1095 Sixth Avenue

Nordstrom Rack is reportedly in talks to snap up the 36,000 square foot Bryant Park retail space that is currently housing an NFL pop-up store.

The retail space at 1095 Avenue of the Americas, an office tower owned by the Blackstone Group, has been used as a pop-up store by Dylan’s Candy Bar and now the NFL, which is occupying the space in part to countdown its upcoming NFL Draft.  Read More

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

ICSC

i-love-new-york

The White Whale of West 57th Street: Nordstrom appears poised for NYC

It’s the great white whale of Manhattan retail.

Aside from Walmart, Nordstrom is the store every retail broker in the city dreams of harpooning and reeling into a new home. One prominent broker familiar with the store, the amount of space it needs and the rents it would probably be willing to pay estimates that the commission for handling its lease would be around $10 million.

But like a leviathan lurking beneath the waves, the department store has offered only fleeting glimpses around the city, most notably at several development sites and a few existing assets with the capacity to accommodate its sprawling footprint.

The scuttlebutt nowadays: Nordstrom is contemplating one of two leases, one at the West Side rail yards with the Related Companies or another at the base of Extell Development’s soaring new residential tower now rising at 157 West 57th Street. Read More