By Al Barbarino 4/16 8:00am

1Q13

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Which Way is Up: Manhattan’s Market Boundaries are Beginning to Blur

From the outside, 222 Broadway fits the stereotype of the Downtown financial office tower.

But when Bank of America downsized, leaving roughly 250,000 square feet of space vacant, a series of tours guided by its new owner, L&L Holdings, quickly blasted that stereotype away.

Condé Nast committed to 80,000 square feet at the tower in early March. WeWork, which provides collaborative workspace for tech and media companies, was next in line. Read More

By Billy Gray 2/07 3:36pm

Lease Beat

218 West 18th Street (Photo Courtesy of Atlas Capital)

SAE Institute Leases 27,000 Square Feet At Surging 218 West 18th Street

SAE Institute (f.k.a. the School of Audio Engineering) signed for a 10-year relocation and expansion that will bring it from 1293 Broadway to 27,000 square feet at 218 West 18th Street in Chelsea, The Commercial Observer has learned.

CBRE‘s Stephen Siegel, Gregg Rothkin and Peter Turchin, along with Zak Snider and Ben Fastenberg  represented the landlord, Atlas Capital Group and GreenOak Real Estate. A team from Realty Insight Group and Zimmer Real Estate Services led by RIG President Neil Schoor represented the tenant. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 11/06/12 7:00am

Midtown

midtown_final_joelkimmel

The Incredible Shrinking Tenant

Earlier this year, approximately 150,000 square feet opened at the Midtown office tower 399 Park Avenue when the law firm WilmerHale, a tenant in the building, left to relocate to Lower Manhattan.

The property, a 1.75-million-square-foot skyscraper owned by the large commercial owner Boston Properties, is home to the global headquarters of Citibank and is widely considered one of the finest office buildings along Park Avenue, an exclusive and highly desirable corridor in Midtown.

Boston Properties had found takers for the building even in the worst of times, filling the few hundred thousand square feet that suddenly became available in 2008 when Lehman Brothers, a former tenant, collapsed and sparked the financial crisis.

Fast-forward to 2012, a market several years removed from the depths of the recession, and this time around, Boston Properties wasn’t taking any chances. According to the leasing agent at the property, Peter Turchin, an executive at the real estate services firm CBRE, Boston Properties quickly switched to the leasing strategy du jour: finding takers for the space one floor at a time rather than waiting for one big user to fill a large portion or all of the space. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 10/16/12 4:20pm

Market Report

Peter Turchin

Where Are the Big Tenants? CBRE Data Shows Lack of Large Deals in Manhattan

The leasing market in Midtown and Lower Manhattan is down due to a paucity of big office deals, the real estate services company CBRE announced this morning, releasing its data for the third quarter of the year.

“In 2011 we had five deals over 250,000 square,” Peter Turchin, a leasing executive at CBRE who delivered a presentation to the media at the company’s headquarters, said, referring to Midtown.  “In 2012 we haven’t had any. In 2011 we had 10 units leased above 100,000 square feet totaling 1.3 million square feet of deals. So far we’ve had two this year. So the real drop-off has been in the large tenant market.” Read More

By Daniel Geiger 4/25/12 10:30am

Lease of the Week

Red Bull's new home will be at

How Red Bull Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Midtown South

Midtown South is hot with leasing activity and 218 West 18th Street, at the area’s nexus of activity in Chelsea, had been recently gut-renovated into pristine condition.

So when Atlas Capital and GreenOak Real Estate Partners purchased the roughly 170,000-square-foot property for about $60 million at the start of the year and handed it to a CBRE leasing team to fill, there was no question they had high expectations. Read More

By Dan Geiger 11/29/11 10:00am

Lease of the Week

641 avenue of the americas

Infor and the Lease Negotiations Behind Its Deal at 641 Avenue of the Americas

Hired to lease 641 Avenue of the Americas earlier this year, Peter Turchin, an executive at the real estate services firm CBRE, quickly knew what potential takers the 170,000-square-foot building could appeal to.

The property is located at the edge of Chelsea, a neighborhood that in recent years has attracted an influx of technology, Internet and social media-related firms. Earlier this year, the area’s rise as the focal point of what is being dubbed a burgeoning “Silicon Alley” in Manhattan was cemented by Google’s $2 billion acquisition of 111 Eighth Avenue, a nearly three-million-square-foot property between 15th and 16th streets where the Internet search and software company bases its New York operations.

Still, Mr. Turchin said he didn’t want to rest on the neighborhood’s credentials alone. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11/21/11 3:22pm

Lease Beat

Infor

What you Infor? Georgia-based software firm becomes latest "Alley" cat

As the old adage goes, you only have one chance to make a first impression.

For Infor, a business software company whose roster of 70,000 clients – Saab, AB World Foods, Foxwood Casinos, et al – are far more recognizable than they are, moving into New York City’s growing tech market is as good as telling the world you’re ready to play with the big boys.

Infor signed a long-term lease at 641 Avenue of the Americas, an eight-story building owned by Atlas  Capital Group, officials announced earlier today. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 2/15/10 8:10pm

The Landlord Rep

By his own estimation, Peter Turchin has shuffled little more than a modest 40 feet since joining CB Richard Ellis as a new broker some 16 years ago.

But by inching across the hall from the firm’s 30-member consulting group on the 18th floor of the MetLife Building to its far more Read More