The consignment store Second Time Around signed a long-term lease for 1,213 square feet of Stuyvesant Town real estate at 334 First Avenue.
Scott Galin and Darell Handler of Handler Real Estate Organization represented the tenant. Bruce Spiegel and William Bergman of Rose Associates, Inc. represented the landlord, ST Owner, LP. Messrs. Galin and Handler said asking rent was $120 per square foot. Read More
Lewis Baach PLLC, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, has signed a 4-year lease for 3,867 square feet on the 32nd floor of the Chrysler Building at 405 Lexington Avenue, it was announced yesterday. Asking rent was $65 per square foot.
The law firm, which has international offices in London and Buenos Aires, will operate in New York under the name Lewis Baach PLLC Kaufmann Middlemiss. The office is currently operational according to Adam Kaufmann, partner, who will be joined in New York by Arthur Middlemiss. Mr. Kaufman recently left the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to join the firm. Read More
The New York Times’s Charles Bagli’s new book Other People’s Money tackles the housing crisis and 2010 collapse of the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village deal. Set for release April 4, the book takes readers inside the bidding war and the eventual loss of billions of dollars of investor money. Mr. Bagli, a former reporter at The New York Observer, spoke with The Commercial Observer about the book, how the Stuy Town deal defined an era, and whether or not investors and the industry learned a lesson.
The Commercial Observer: What is the significance of this story?
Mr. Bagli: For me—just my own thinking—it was a critical moment. Here we are in the midst of another real estate boom, and it just really highlighted the fact that these guys that used to go for the “glass and brass” are out there scooping up what some people would call “meat and potatoes,” the brick tenements. You sort of step back and say: ‘Whoa, what’s this about?’ Like I say in the book, I think Stuyvesant Town, in a way, is for New Yorkers an iconic place, not dissimilar from the Empire State Building or Rockefeller Center. Read More
The view from the Empire State Building observation deck was especially expansive on March 13, with crystal-clear skies hovering over the five boroughs, New Jersey and, visible to the north, Westchester County. Yet Coco Jones briefly dominated the panorama.
Ms. Jones, 15, was perched, alone, on the southeastern corner of the deck. The Disney Channel alumna—she appeared on the cable network’s short-lived sketch comedy series So Random!—had released her debut EP, Made Of, the previous day. And although its lead single, “Holla at the DJ,” had yet to chart on Billboard’s Hot 100, Ms. Jones was ready to celebrate its release on the Empire State’s Building’s 86th floor. Read More
Miami native Rick Rosa stuffed a few bags with his belongings in 1999 and headed for New York City.
Though not the postcard image he envisioned, he stumbled upon the industrial waterfront neighborhood of Long Island City, where he found an affordable pad, close to Manhattan, with a yard for his dog, Benny.
“The neighborhood Read More
Though not a traditional owner-operator, TIAA-CREF has begun to draw the attention of the real estate industry in recent months for a bevy of deals, including its acquisition of a stake in the Frank Gehry-designed building at 8 Spruce Street and a joint venture with Norges Bank Investment Management.
The asset management firm’s steady persistence in the real estate market during the downturn has led to a realization of gains, and recent deals could lead to the redeployment of capital in key markets going forward, said analysts familiar with the firm’s strategy going into 2013.
“TIAA is one of the investors that was pretty active in the depths of the market in 2009 and 2010, and some of those investments have turned into significant home runs,” said Dan Fasulo, managing director and head of research at Real Capital Analytics. Read More
In one of the largest real estate deals in recent memory, Comcast will purchase from General Electric the properties used by NBCUniversal at iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza and CNBC Headquarters as part of its acquisition of GE’s remaining 49 percent equity stake in the media company, it was announced earlier this week.
Though the building is owned by Tishman Speyer, the office and studio space at 30 Rock involved in the deal is owned by GE and is considered a commercial condo. GE will keep space in the building on the 52nd and 53rd floors.
The real estate component of the deal accounts for approximately $1.4 billion of the $16.7 billion transaction and trumps the $1.1 billion sale of the Sony Building to the Chetrit Group last month. Read More
Massey Knakal is marketing a massive lot for long-term net lease at 39-19 21st Street for $1.5 million, hoping to capitalize on the rapid development occurring in western Queens.
Neatly tucked between a number of strategic roadways and two rapidly changing neighborhoods, the 100,000-square-foot lot on the corner of 39th Avenue and 21st Street sits between Long Island City and Astoria, Queens.
“It’s rare to come up with this large a footprint along a main drag,” said Benjamin Fox, executive vice president of retail leasing with the firm, who is exclusively marketing the property. Read More
Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty has signed a 99-year triple-net lease at British department store tycoon Mohamed Al Faye’s 75 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, where it plans to undertake a major capital improvement to reposition the building.
The 33-story building will be fully vacated by Time Warner Cable in 2014, leaving behind roughly 630,000 square feet of rentable area, and the renovations will include a new lobby and a restoration of its landmarked, classic limestone façade, executives at RXR said. Read More
As forecasters became more and more certain that a monster storm named Sandy was barreling toward Manhattan in the 48 hours leading up to its landfall on Monday, October 29, Real Estate Board of New York President Steven Spinola lay in a hospital bed recovering from a sudden medical emergency.
But the hospital stay didn’t Read More
In July, the Real Estate Board of New York announced that Rob Speyer, 43, president and co-CEO of Tishman Speyer, would succeed Mary Ann Tighe to become its youngest chairman ever. Stepping in this month, he is the third successive generation of his family to hold the post—also a first in the organization’s 117-year history. Though he might have a reputation as being media-shy, Mr. Speyer’s success in real estate is no secret—his company has completed $6 billion in new transactions and raised $4.5 billion of new equity since 2010. Mr. Speyer sat down with The Commercial Observer last week for a rare interview to discuss his new appointment, his agenda for REBNY in 2013, following in his father and grandfather’s footsteps, and the best way forward for New York City as global competition ramps up.
Featuring an all-star line up of the city’s most formidable real estate professionals, this year’s annual Masters of Real Estate fetched a record 450 RSVPs, The Commercial Observer has learned.
Observer Media Group executives began preparing for the event, now in its third year, six months in advance with an eye toward creating an eclectic mix of speakers. Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties, Michael Fascitelli of Vornado, William Rudin of Rudin Management, Jeff Blau of Related Companies and Glenn Rufrano of Cushman & Wakefield are all scheduled to appear. Rob Speyer of Tishman Speyer bowed out.
Jared Kushner, the owner of The Commercial Observer and president of Kushner Companies, will lead the event with remarks. Read More
With school back in session earlier this month, The Commercial Observer reviewed its library of leather bound text books and plucked at random a collection of 15 entry-level real estate trivia questions, touching on everything from ethic and law to pop culture and the brick and mortar itself.
While a high score won’t ensure success in real estate, it does promise popularity in life and bragging rights at the water cooler. The answers are upside down below, after the jump. Buena Suerte! Read More
From Washington Heights to Lower Manhattan, nearly every neighborhood includes at least a little office space.
And while it can be difficult to discern on the ground, most neighborhoods and ZIP codes have a single, predominant landlord who rules the roost.
To determine who controls each of the borough’s nearly 50 ZIP codes, we combed the portfolios of Manhattan’s 20 largest owners and drafted a turf map of sorts. In cases where none of the 20 largest landlords owned office property, such as in the Lower East Side and parts of the West Village, no victor is listed.
Gathered from each company’s official website and media liaisons, as well as the United States Postal Service, the data after the jump includes ZIP codes for single buildings as well, numbered in inset maps. Read More
HonestBuildings, a new tech start-up co-founded by a former Tishman Speyer executive, has secured its first round of financing from a group of venture capital firms that include RockPort Capital and Mohr Davidow Ventures, the company is expected to announce later today.
Since launching in March, the website has expanded its roster of buildings listed on its site from 30,000 to 600,000, and now operates in markets that include New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Dallas and Houston.
Read More
