By Al Barbarino 3/26 7:30am

Sales Beat

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Comcast Seals its $1.3 B. Piece of 30 Rock

Comcast has closed on its $1.3 billion purchase of 1.3 million square feet of office and studio space at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, city records confirm.

The transaction was part of the media and communications giant’s $16.7 billion purchase of a 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric, announced last month.

The location, the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center, is host to the property’s annual Christmas tree lighting and inspiration for the title of NBC’s television series “30 Rock.” Read More

By Al Barbarino 2/25 11:01am

Renovation and Repositioning

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Brodsky to Renovate 157 Columbus Avenue Following Disney Departure

The Brodsky Organization is renovating and repositioning 157 Columbus Avenue following the departure of longtime tenant Walt Disney Co., The Commercial Observer has learned.

The renovation is the first at the Upper West Side office building since it was built 30 years ago, in 1983 – the same year Walt Disney signed its lease there.

Ownership hired architecture firm Davis Brody Bond LLP to design the new lobby, elevator cabs, bathrooms, and upgraded building infrastructure, while a team from Cushman & Wakefield will resume its leasing efforts on the roughly 70,000 square feet of available space after the renovations, expected to conclude this summer, are complete. 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 Daniel Geiger 7/10/12 7:00am

Power Broker

Marty Burger.

Can Larry Silverstein’s Heir Apparent, Marty Burger, Rise to the Occasion?

During a ski trip to Colorado several months ago, Michael May, an executive at Cantor Fitzgerald, remembers his eagerness to hit the slopes. He rose at the crack of dawn and found his friend Marty Burger, who had organized the trip, waiting in the lodge with the same idea in mind.

Traveling with a large group of executives, they skied all day. Mr. May remembers being exhausted, but Mr. Burger convinced him to join him and few others for some indoor tennis back at the hotel. A couple of games, at Mr. Burger’s urging, turned into a couple of sets. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 5/02/12 4:30pm

The Sit-Down

Patrick Smith.

Retail is Dead, Long Live Retail: Patrick Smith of SRS Real Estate on the Future of Brick-and-Mortar

Patrick Smith is an executive vice president and principal of the retail real estate services firm SRS Real Estate Partners, which was spun off from Staubach when that company was acquired by Jones Lang LaSalle. Mr. Smith is a busy leasing dealmaker not only in the city but nationally and represents a host of large retailers that have been active in the market both here and around the country, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Party City and Disney. With ICSC, the biggest retail event of the year, only weeks away, Mr. Smith weighed in on the state of the retail market with The Commercial Observer and discussed what he has planned for this year’s conference in Las Vegas. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 2/29/12 3:46pm

Lease Beat

Time Warner Center. (Courtesy Property Shark)

C. Wonder Deal Inked at Time Warner Center

C. Wonder, the preppy apparel and accessories retailer launched last year by designer Tory Burch’s ex husband, Christopher Burch, has signed on for a space at Time Warner Center, according to sources familiar with the deal.

The store, which opened another Manhattan store last October in Soho, will take about half of the roughly 15,000 square feet formerly occupied by the now-defunct bookstore chain Borders on the retail complex’s second floor. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 2/21/12 12:30pm

The Sit-Down

Gregg Weiser.

Moinian’s Main Man: Gregg Weisser on Columbus Circle and Young & Rubicam

Gregg Weisser knows how to handle a hot house. The newly anointed executive managing director of the Moinian Group, and volunteer fireman with the Kismet Fire Department in Fire Island, New York, is no stranger to putting out fires, be it a burning beach house or as a director of leasing across some of the city’s most notable addresses. As the real estate director of JPMorgan Chase, where he had worked for over 20 years, Mr. Weisser closed a million and a half feet of empty space in 1 New York Plaza.

Read More

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

ICSC

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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

By Daniel Geiger 12/07/11 1:30pm

ICSC

After Hours: Real Estate Brokers Look For After-After-After ICSC Party

It’s ICSC week in New York City and while many in the retail business consider the event secondary to the larger conference held by the organization in Las Vegas each May, for many Manhattan real estate brokers, the conference is the most important of the year—and not necessarily just because of its jam-packed daytime roster of speakers and seminars.

In establishments from the New York Times’s four-star-rated Del Posto to the Dream Hotel in Lower Manhattan, buttoned-up retail brokers will be wining and dining potential clients during a two-day orgy of after-hour soirees, dinners and suds-soaked meetings, all designed with the deal in mind. Read More