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 Stephen Kleege 4/09 7:30am

Cover Story

Gas Odor Investigated In New York City

The Landlord’s Market: Midtown South’s Uphill Climb

Midtown South is starting to look a little like Downtown North.

In the latest sign of the evolution of Manhattan’s former no-man’s land between Midtown and Downtown into the hottest office submarket in the U.S., Cushman & Wakefield last week noted a migration of financial firms into Midtown South and a corresponding overflow of technology and media firms into the Financial District over the past 10 years.

“We’ve never seen such an intertwining of the Midtown South market and Downtown,” Andrew Peretz, executive vice president at C&W, said in an interview. Read More

By Al Barbarino 2/07 4:34pm

Lease Beat

99 Park Avenue

Law Firm Takes 30,000 SF at 99 Park Avenue

Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach, LLP has renewed its 30,000-square-foot lease at 99 Park Avenue in Midtown’s Grand Central submarket for an additional ten years, sources tell The Commercial Observer.

The firm sealed the deal for the seventh floor — which was set to expire in 2015 — through May 2026, hoping to lock rents Read More

By Karsten Strauss 1/08 7:00am

4Q12

4Q12 for web

Weathering the Storm: 4th Quarter Leasing Saw Improvements

T

Times of change and uncertainty are always worrisome for investors—fear takes hold, spending is called into question and valuations become unpredictable.

Mix an election season with the impending threat of a potentially devastating fiscal cliff, then throw in a destructive, rogue tropical storm named Sandy, and you’ve created an environment that is not conducive to a stellar business quarter for the commercial market.

However, thanks to tax law-motivated sales and retail—as well as a handful of big end-of-year leasing deals—the fourth quarter ended on a relatively positive note, despite a slowdown in leasing activity. Read More

By Stephen Kleege 11/13/12 7:15am

Power Broker

Alex Chudnoff.

The Storm Chaser: Alexander Chudnoff on Post-Sandy NYC Recovery Efforts

Alexander Chudnoff, a commercial leasing broker who takes pride in strengthening relationships with clients through “impeccable service,” was especially busy in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

The Jones Lang LaSalle executive managing director was dividing his time last week between volunteer efforts in the Rockaways, where he provided hot pizza and coffee to storm victims, and getting on the phone to make sure his Downtown Manhattan clients could stay open. Though it was a difficult time, the activity of making connections was just what attracted Mr. Chudnoff to the business in the first place.

“I love to make calls. I love to canvass,” he said. “I like to develop the relationship.”

In some cases, the storm required short-term arrangements, such as lining up space with other clients or in Jones Lang’s own offices, he said. In others, clients were able to proceed with minimal disruption, as when Dentsu Holdings USA returned to work at 32 Avenue of the Americas when Rudin Management opened the building the Monday after the storm. Read More

By Ian Thomas 10/16/12 7:30am

Midtown South

Greenwich/Noho.

With 51 Astor, Noho Takes Spotlight

Noho is finally turning into a swan.

Being seen as an attractive destination is a drastic change for a neighborhood that was described as the “ugly stepsister of Soho” in a Wall Street Journal article just two years ago. Likewise, many New Yorkers saw it as the small neighborhood that was looking for some way of differentiating itself from its sister to the south.

But the area might have just found what it’s been looking for with 51 Astor Place, the 430,000-square-foot granite-and-glass office tower now under construction. Once completed, the building will provide “infrastructure for companies that you can’t find in many other places in New York City—let alone this neighborhood,” said Paul Glickman of Jones Lang LaSalle, who is working as a leasing agent at 51 Astor, a development project spearheaded by Edward J. Minskoff Equities . 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 Daniel Geiger 6/28/12 8:30am

Lease Beat

600 Lexington Avenue

Five Ink 50,000 at 600 Lexington Avenue

Five tenants have leased nearly 50,000 square feet at 600 Lexington, the building’s landlord, SL Green, announced on Tuesday.

F5 Networks, an information technology company, signed a 10-year deal for 12,487 square feet, the roughly 300,000 square foot building’s entire fifth floor. Robert Stella, a broker at Cresa Partners represented F5 Networks in the deal. 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 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 Edward Rosen 2/27/12 10:18am

Leasing Woes

Mr. Minskoff not pictured.

A Whole Lotta Space Up for the Takin’ in 2013, WSJ Sez

While leasing activity for much of New York City in the past few months has been more lackluster than blockbuster, a sizable chunk of available space –sizable in the, say, 6 million square foot range– is on the cusp of hitting the market, The Wall Street Journal reports.

New developments like 1 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center, and Edward Minskoff’s 51 Astor Place, are all slated to hit the market in 2013. The last time NYC had this much new space becoming available was in 1989, said Cassidy Turley’s Robert Sammons. 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