Sunday Summary: Eric Adams Seizes Nomination

But, a winner for the primary has been announced: Eric Adams. (He faces GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa in the general election, but he is expected to trounce the former Guardian Angel.) And, for their part, real estate is pretty damned ecstatic.

Real estate is still looking to the political class to help them stabilize after the last year. (Those who are interested in the local results about the borough president races should check out Commercial Observer’s coverage.)

There is still worry about the crime rate in a city that relies so much on tourism to make ends meet. Gov. Cuomo went so far as to declare it an emergency on Tuesday. Although, the governor’s statement was more than just histrionic when he said that more people were dying of gun violence than COVID-19. Eighty-two people died of gun violence between January and May in New York; 343 people died of COVID in June alone. (You’d think that the governor would have learned that it’s not a great idea to fudge his numbers.)

But, there was other good news for real estate. New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron struck down a lawsuit from the SoHo Alliance and the Broadway Residents Coalition that was attempting to stop the rezoning of SoHo and NoHo. This will essentially allow Mayor de Blasio’s plan for new housing and retail in the area to proceed.

And, there was the old good news/bad news on the residential front. A June market report dropped from Douglas Elliman, saying that the number of leases signed last month was triple what it was a year ago, the highest total since 2008. But, rents are down. (Not by a ton; the median rent slipped 3.8 percent. But, down is still down.)

As for leases …

We should start with the most delicious first. Harlem Shake, the burger-and-fries haven on West 124th Street, is no longer solely a Harlem (or even a Manhattan) institution: It just took 2,600 square feet in Park Slope, Brooklyn. (Speaking of delicious deals, we also learned that PEBB Enterprises bought a Boca Raton parcel with plans to put up a new restaurant row. Until we know more about the operators, Harlem Shake still qualifies as the most delicious deal.)

Less toothsome, but highly enticing: We learned that Wafra Capital snagged 14,000 square feet at L&L’s 425 Park Avenue.

And, for Instagram nuts, the upscale health store Erewhon Market took 4,258 square feet at The Culver Steps in Los Angeles.

Speaking of things that look good on Instagram, we learned that beauty brand Glossier raised $80 million in Series E funding from Lone Pine Capital (and others), and, after a pullback last year from brick-and-mortar stores (where they closed locations in L.A. and New York), also revealed plans to open three new stores and reopen its SoHo location.

There were also big sales and financings last week: In industrial, Brookfield (BN) is planning a logistics center right near the Nassau Coliseum. (They also have big plans involving ghost kitchens and shopping centers.) A multifamily complex traded hands in suburban D.C. for $42 million.

Now, for the headaches

Of course, the week couldn’t have passed without some legal hassle, could it?

Equinox is being sued (again) by its landlord at 568 Broadway over $3.3 million in back rent. (This feels more than a little rich, given that one of Equinox’s major investors is Related, and its CEO, Jeff Blau, scolded tenants for using the pandemic as an excuse not to pay rent back in April.)

But, $3.3 million is not nearly as bad as what Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation is facing: On Thursday, a judge ruled that the landlord was on the hook for its share of a $136 million loan on the New York Marriott East Side, which it owned with Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH and which the pair defaulted on back in July.

What’s going on in Surfside

We recommend checking out CO’s cover story this week about the tragedy in Surfside, and the fact that it is not simply a freak occurrence, but something that will almost certainly happen again, thanks to salt water erosion, rising sea levels, and the lackadaisical approach everybody seems to have toward fixing these problems.

Hopefully this tragedy jolts the beach communities into action, because it should not be ignored for one minute longer.

See you next week.