Sunday Summary: It Was a Busy Week for Everybody

As long as you don’t care about the Middle East, fatal plane crashes, U.S. senators being manhandled and handcuffed at press conferences, heated campaigns for the mayorship of America’s largest city, or the death of two music legends, it was a slow news week.

Actually, that’s probably not even true.

A last-ditch effort to halt the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses Act (or FARE) by the Real Estate Board of New York was stymied by a federal judge last week. The law now prohibits real estate brokers hired by landlords from receiving a commission from the tenants they bring in. REBNY argued that ultimately the costs would be passed on to tenants in the form of higher rents.

“New Yorkers will soon realize the negative impacts of the FARE Act when listings become scarce and rents rise,” said REBNY head James Whelan in a statement.

Needless to say, not everyone agrees.

“This removes a huge barrier for everyday New Yorkers to access housing,” said Genesis Aquino of Tenants & Neighbors Coalition, which championed the law, “and is a big win for all of the working families and tenants who keep our city running.”

But affordability is on a lot of people’s’ minds. At least, affordable development was on the minds of the good folks at Sixth Street, which made a “significant” investment in L+M Companies, one of the most prolific affordable housing developers in the city and the U.S.

What does “significant” mean, exactly?

Beats us, but given that L+M’s portfolio consists of some 60,000 homes worth an estimated $20 billion, we imagine it’s quite a bit.

“The creation and preservation of affordable housing is a pressing national priority, and L+M is committed to strengthening economically diverse communities decades into the future,” said L+M’s Carrie Van Syckel in announcing the deal. “Partnering with a leading investor like Sixth Street creates a powerful foundation for L+M to deliver on our mission and foster transformative, community-driven development that ensures long-term housing solutions for families across the country.”

Of course, one of the key questions about affordable housing is whether it’s linked to transportation hubs. And we saw some news there, too.

Remember Andy Byford? The British-born “Train Daddy” who headed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority during its infamous “Summer of Hell” is back!

He was recently appointed head of the effort to redevelop Penn Station, and Byford wasted no time in giving his assessment of the task before him.

“Look at it, it’s terrible,” Byford said of the terminal. “This is not worthy of the city of New York. This is not worthy of the U.S.”

But for a fuller picture of what Byford’s Douglas MacArthur-like return will mean, check out CO’s story here.

Oh, and one last piece of news re: transportation. The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) took a whopping 212,094-square-foot lease at HUB LIC, at 47-25 34th Street in Long Island City for vehicles and equipment storage. (The biggest lease of the week!)

It’s not all affordable

There was plenty of news in the market-rate and condo worlds, too. And not just in New York.

Tavros Capital, Charney Companies and Incoco Capital have a 55-story, 600-unit condo currently under construction at 24-19 Jackson Avenue in Court Square. The developers secured $425 million in construction financing from Madison Realty Capital and another $100 million in preferred equity from Kushner Companies and OneIm.

Hines and JR Real Estate Group nabbed an 80-acre lot for $55 million near Manassas, Va., with plans to build some 320 homes as part of a master-planned community — and then got $88 million from Harvest Capital and TPG Angelo Gordon to make the purchase and begin building out the project.

The Tokyo-based Sekisui House REIT spent $299 million on two mid-rise multifamily buildings, consisting of 340 units and called Crescendo, at the City Ridge campus in Northwest D.C.

Not to be outdone, Stephen Ross’s Related Ross scored South Florida’s biggest condo construction financing package of 2025 in the form of $600 million for South Flagler House, dual 28-story towers that will house 108 units and slated for completion in 2027.

What about office?

Well, there was some not-so-great news last week when Paramount Global announced that it was shedding 3.5 percent of its workforce and putting 355,000 square feet of its New York City office footprint up for subleasing.

That being said, an interesting tenant is coming into the Gotham fold: crypto.

Coinbase, for instance, took space at One Madison Avenue last year, as did the crypto trading platform dYdX, and Circle Internet Financial recently relocated from Boston to New York. The moves signal that this enormously wealthy tenant class is starting to lay down roots, specifically in a U.S. market that last year hadn’t been as attractive.

“The high-level takeaway is that New York now offers more stability than many international locations that may have previously been viewed as more of a safe haven,” said Gabe Marans of Savills.

And outside of New York there were some interesting office moves last week.

Henry and Susan Samueli, who own the Anaheim Ducks, scored the 12-story, 261,939-square-foot Stadium Tower office building in Anaheim from CBRE Investment Management and CalSTRS for $72.1 million.

And in Downtown L.A. Uncommon Developers nabbed $150 million from lenders Barings and Nuveen toward the $210 million purchase of the 52-story Figueroa at Wilshire from Brookfield Properties.

Sunday reading

After all that, it’s nice to hear the comforting voice of one of the legends of the business.

Commercial Observer checked in with MaryAnne Gilmartin on her many projects for our cover story last week. Hopefully that will get your mind off war, politics, disasters and dead musicians.

Here’s one more thing to send you off with.

See you next week!

Disclosure: Joseph Meyer, chairman of Observer Media, owner of Commercial Observer, is married to Nicole Kushner Meyer, a principal at Kushner Companies.