By Al Barbarino 12/13/12 5:19pm

What's in a Name?

Howard Lorber and Dottie Herman

Douglas Elliman Makes Another Plea on Name Change

Dear Google, please refresh your cache:  the city’s largest residential brokerage has dropped “Prudential” from its name.

The former Prudential Douglas Elliman returned to its roots as Douglas Elliman last month after it was reportedly unable to strike a new licensing agreement for the name “Prudential.”

The Douglas Elliman name, originated along with the firm in 1911, has been adopted by all of the company’s businesses, including its commercial real estate arm, and the firm redistributed a statement today saying so, perhaps as a rebuttal to multiple media failings to follow suit on the change. Read More

By Billy Gray 12/05/12 7:15am

ICSC2012

US-IT-INTERNET-MICROSOFT-WINDOWS 8-SURFACE

Microsoft Among Wave of New Retailers to “Pop Up” Across Manhattan

Microsoft is cashing in on the critical, but fleeting, holiday shopping season with two ephemeral New York retail outlets. The software giant’s local pop-up stores opened Oct. 27 in Times Square and at The Shops at Columbus Circle, and purport to ease seasonal shopping anxiety with a “curated” selection of the company’s best products.

But the holiday stores’ marquee piece will be Surface, the tablet that Microsoft shipped on the eve of the pop-ups’ opening. By pushing Surface using the pop-up platform, Microsoft is hewing to one of the retail model’s key tenets since it landed in New York about a decade ago.

Initially a form of stealth advertising and a way for retailers to wade into the waters of unfamiliar markets, pop-ups now increasingly qualify as retail events that attract, rather than chase, consumers and help make established companies seem hip rather than lend legitimacy to upstarts.

“There are two reasons why pop-ups continue to be popular: retailers want to test markets in new neighborhoods or, in Microsoft’s case, want to test new concepts,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairwoman of the retail leasing and sales division at Douglas Elliman, who was not involved with Microsoft’s seasonal shops. Read More

By Billy Gray and Al Barbarino 11/21/12 7:30am

Postings

The Thanksgiving Turkey float during th

Real Estate Leaders Give Thanks

Scanning the papers and business web-sites, you’d assume the economy—and, perhaps, the real estate industry in general—was approaching a quagmire, what with employment rates still lower than expected and leasing sluggish.

Nonetheless, with Thanksgiving approaching we asked some of the commercial real estate industry’s biggest names what they were thankful for this year,and their answers were far more positive than expected.

After the jump, a brief sampling of the responses, as told to Commercial Observer staff reporters Al Barbarino and Billy Gray.
Read More

By Alessia Pirolo 9/28/12 11:35am

Lease Beat

459 West 18th Street.

Atelier Charles Jouffre Leases Artsy Space in Chelsea

Two floors of a Chelsea condo—formerly home to the art gallery Taxter & Spengemann—have been taken over by French company Atelier Charles Jouffre, a specialist in wall décor, custom upholstery and window treatments.

The Paris-based Atelier Charles Jouffre has inked a deal for a 2,000-square-foot space at 459 West 18th Street, located between Ninth and Tenth Avenues near the High Line. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 7/25/12 7:30am

Lease Beat

mariana antinori

Mariana Antinori Coming to Madison

Italian luxury goods store Mariana Antinori will be opening up a new its first New York City location at 1244 Madison Avenue, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The store –which will sell custom jewelry, timepieces, and womenswear and menswear– will be moving into a 755-square-foot space that was formerly occupied by Seigo, a purveyor of bespoke ties and bow ties.

Faith Hope Consolo and Joseph Aquino, both of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Retail Group, represented 17 East 89th Street Tenants, Inc., the landlords of 1244 Madison Avenue. Sinvin Real Estate represented Mariana Antinori in the deal. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 7/03/12 11:38am

Lease Beat

Photo Courtesy of BBC.co.uk

1 Bite Mediterranean Signs At 875 Third Avenue, Eyes Eataly Style Food Hall

Turkish eatery 1 Bite Mediterranean will be opening its second location at 875 Third Avenue, but this time the business will forgo a restaurant concept for a catering service that hopes to patronize the slew of investment banks and law firms that line Midtown.

And NY F&B Services, LLC, the catering company that owns 1 Bite Mediterranean, is eying a new site for a possible Eataly-style food hall, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The restaurant-slash-caterer will be taking a 3,600-square-foot space that used to be the home of Fisher & Levy Office Catering. Asking rents were $65-a-square-foot in the 10-year lease, according to The New York Post, which broke the news of the deal. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 12/07/11 3:00pm

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The Flatiron District, one of many suggested "hot" "new" neighborhoods.

Q: The City's Next Hot Neighborhood? A: Take Your Pick

To seasoned retail brokers, the very concept of the next big neighborhood in a city that has been developed several times over is, well, naïve. Still, as The Commercial Observer recently learned, most are still looking for a reason to believe. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11/29/11 7:00am

Lease Beat

Carlyle

EXCLUSIVE: French Fashion Flagship Headed for NYC's Carlyle Hotel

Fancy French fashion powerhouse Perrin Paris will be launching its first flagship New York City store at the Carlyle Hotel, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The century-old, family-run luxury leather goods company–founded in 1893, to be exact–will rub elbows with fellow swanky retailers Vera Wang, Stubbs & Wootton and Yves Delorme Linens at the 987 Madison Avenue hotel. Read More

7/08/11 11:19am

apartments

They all look the same, really.

We All Pay the Same Manhattan Rents Now

As it turns out, we’re all screwed (except uptown)—the latest second-quarter data from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel shows there isn’t much discrepancy between rents on the East Side, West Side and downtown in Manhattan. And the net rates just keep on rising. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 12/01/09 1:06pm

The Elizabeth Taylor of Retail

Faith Hope Consolo had already made herself crystal clear by the time she finally strode into the lush, sofa-lined conference room on Madison Avenue. Like the lag between lightning and thunder, the so-called retail queen’s New Yawkese streaks through the halls of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s third-floor office seconds before her arrival.

“I hope we’re going Read More