Sunday Summary: Right Said Fed
By The Editors August 31, 2025 9:00 am
reprints
One of the metadramas that has consumed the summer like some kind of media sarlacc has been President Donald Trump’s open feud with the governing board of the Federal Reserve.
Trump has threatened repeatedly to fire its chairman, Jerome Powell, and this past week moved to fire one of its governors, Lisa Cook, due to alleged mortgage fraud.
As of this writing, the status quo appeared to be holding vis-à-vis the central bank and the executive branch. Should things shift, however, here’s what could happen to borrowing costs, including re: commercial real estate deals.
New York goes to 11.
This summer also saw the storyline of New York City’s pandemic recovery solidify. One of the driving forces behind this narrative has been renewed investment sales activity. That activity continued this week with major deals.
These deals included DLJ Real Estate’s $92 million sale of the Nine Orchard hotel on the Lower East Side and Vornado’s $218 million purchase of the office tower at 623 Fifth Avenue. Plus, the City University of New York formally signaled its intent to buy the Financial District campus of the Metropolitan College of New York for $40 million.
In Brooklyn, CW Realty paid $42.5 million for a one-story Crown Heights building that can be redeveloped into a much bigger mixed-use project. And Domain Companies and LMXD spent around $122 million to purchase a majority stake in a development site in Greenpoint. Development-wise in the borough, the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn advanced plans for a 99-unit residential project next to one of its Coney Island churches. (Wondering why there has been a wave of 99-unit residential proposals of late? Read this for the answer.)
There were also big leasing deals, too. Top of the list: American Eagle Outfitters expanding to 392,185 square feet at 63 Madison, which a joint venture between George Comfort & Sons, Jamestown and Loeb Partners Realty owns. Two tech firms signed deals at 25 Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and at 116 East 16th Street in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park.
And Mediterranean bistro Motek announced two more locations in the city (after announcing its first location in April): 2178 Broadway on the Upper West Side and 168-170 Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg. Plus, a NoMad address will host the second New York location of cinnamon roll shrine Sunday Morning.
This week also brought some serious financing deals in New York. Like the $535 million in construction financing that Alloy Development and the Vistria Group secured for the second phase of their mixed-use mammoth in Downtown Brooklyn. (And, while it’s only kind of NYC-adjacent, affiliates of Dune Real Estate and the Robert Martin Company snagged $500 million in refinancing for 42 industrial properties in Westchester County.)
And new stats on organized retail theft in New York state, including its largest city, revealed a sharp decline in incidents from 2024 to 2025.
It wasn’t all smiles und sunshine.
The New York market isn’t out of the proverbial woods yet. Brookfield Properties was served with a pre-foreclosure filing on its 19-story office tower at 115 Myrtle Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn. (Farther down the East Coast, a Brookfield fund recently sold two distressed office properties, one in Virginia and the other in Georgia.)
On the other side of the empire, the 42-story 1 Cal Plaza in Downtown L.A. found itself in court-ordered receivership due to financial trouble. The move is an outlier in a market that’s largely on the rebound from its pandemic nadir. Also, in Miami, a foreclosure led to an ownership change at an office tower in the Wynwood neighborhood.
And a new report from JLL showed that New York office buildings near major transit hubs were pulling away from competitors like a train running late. This is, of course, good for addresses around Grand Central, Penn Station and the Oculus hub in Lower Manhattan. Not so much everyone else.
Still, the deals came fast and furious, and from all over. Invesco loaned $390.1 million to the buyers of six top-shelf multifamily properties in Houston. Raintree Partners paid $100 million for a multifamily project in Ventura, Calif. And Related Companies acquired a — what else? — multifamily project in Delray Beach, Fla., for $116.9 million. (For more on the general South Florida residential scene, may we suggest our interview with developer Javier Lluch?)
And, mixing things up a bit but staying in South Florida, hospitality platform Madison Newbond originated a $79.3 million refinancing package for a Marriott-branded hotel in Downtown Miami. Further mixing it up: the $52.8 million trade of a grocery-anchored shopping center in Jupiter, Fla. (For more on grocery-anchored retail’s resiliency, check out this piece from early 2024. The dynamics still hold.)
Along with all the drama surrounding the will-he-or-won’t-he governance of the Federal Reserve is uncertainty over the fate of mortgage market giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Bush II administration with congressional approval took over the entities during the Global Financial Crisis 17 years ago, and the Trump administration wants to reprivatize them.
The move would instantly become one of the biggest commercial real estate stories of this century so far. And the plot could play out in myriad ways. We break down each in your Sunday longread.
Or maybe save it for tomorrow, when we hope you have a day off. Cheers!
