Sunday Summary: Please Welcome to the Dance Floor Kevin Warsh

`Tis well known that much (all?) of commercial real estate investment is dependent on debt. And that debt is dependent on borrowing costs. So decisions by America’s central bank re: short-term interest rates are big.

The latest decision came Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve decided as expected to hold current short-term rates steady. The decision followed three straight rate cuts. It also followed quite a bit of presidentially induced drama at the Fed. 

And the workweek closed with even more of said drama as President Donald Trump officially nominated Kevin Warsh to be the central bank’s next chairman. Warsh — and the man who tapped him — are bullish on slashing rates further. Check out the CRE industry’s reaction to Trump’s selection here, and stay tuned for more plot twists.

Do you understand how finance works?  

Whatever uncertainty continues to swirl around the Fed, big finance deals continued to flow through CRE this week. 

The single biggest deal involved Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance selling its entire $9 billion CRE loan portfolio to insurer Athene Holding. (Yes, the real estate investment trust is exiting real estate.)

Also on the ginormous side was a record construction loan for Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood. Terra and AB Asset Management secured $410 million for a boutique condo there from the very, very busy Tyko Capital. (Side note: Terra’s CEO is a man named David Martin; another David Martin was tapped this week to lead Swire Properties, which is building a Mandarin Oriental-branded hotel and condo in Miami.) Sticking in Miami — in Coconut Grove, in fact — CMC Group and Fort Partners lined up nearly $324 million in construction financing from Bank OZK for a Four Seasons-branded condo project. 

Up the East Coast, 60 Guilders and Sentry Realty got $213 million to refinance the office tower at Manhattan’s 1375 Broadway from Bain Capital. And, across the East River, a consortium that includes the Carlyle Group secured more than $224 million in bridge financing from Wells Fargo for an apartment tower in Queens that opened last year.

There were other nine-figure financing deals this week. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley originated a $160 million commercial mortgage-backed securities loan for Haven Capital to refinance a portfolio of apartment and office assets in New York, New Jersey, Missouri and D.C. In Boston, National Development sealed $190 million to refinance a pair of apartment properties. Finally, out in Orange County, Calif., investor Dwight Manley got $112 million in acquisition financing for a 34-acre site he wants to develop into a Costco-anchored complex. 

In keeping with the monied theme, several CRE firms rolled out their fourth-quarter 2025 numbers this week. All in all, they weren’t bad.

As perhaps any sentient being could’ve predicted, asset management giant Blackstone turned in a particularly stellar Q4 ($2.2 billion in earnings?!). Class A office behemoth BXP also reported numbers stronger than in recent quarters, and the landlord hinted at another major tenant lease for its under-construction 343 Madison Avenue. (For more on 343 Madison, check out our interview conducted last summer with Hilary Spann, BXP’s New York-area chief.)

Sticking with office players, SL Green, the largest New York City owner of such space, ran down its Q4 numbers too. The real estate investment trust did record a net loss in the last three months of 2025, but otherwise finished strong in terms of revenue and leasing. SL Green Chairman and CEO Marc Holliday took the earnings call as an opportunity to note the political winds blowing up and down the Hudson.

“We are about a month into the Mamdani administration and know there is a lot of pressure and focus on the mayor right out of the gate, but it’s going to take some time for the mayor to put an imprint on how he’ll govern,” Holliday said. “At the same time, there’s a lot of political maneuvering going on as we enter budget season in Albany. This is the time of the year when the city makes its case to get the biggest piece of the state budget for the fiscal year reflecting the city’s enormous contribution to the state economy.”

Speaking of Albany, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was the featured speaker at the Real Estate Board of New York’s recent annual gala. We were there, and we buttonholed some of the most significant players in CRE. Check out the red carpet video. 

Investment giant Invesco also turned in its fourth-quarter numbers, which included the revelation that the firm now has $2.2 trillion — that’s “trillion” with a “t” — in assets under management. (And, on a more granular level, we broke the news that Invesco had hired Carly Tripp as a managing director and its client portfolio manager.) 

On the cooler side of earnings season, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the nation’s largest owner of life sciences space, recorded another tough go of it. It’s been a tough run for life sciences real estate in general. Alexandria Executive Chairman Joel Marcus described 2025 on a Tuesday earnings call as “the fifth year of a bear market.” The company is therefore planning to offload more than half a billion dollars worth of assets. 

Also offloading is Carr Properties, the big D.C.-focused owner and developer. We caught up with CEO Oliver Carr III to discuss recent transactions as the company repositions itself.

Two floors above the butcher/First door on the right

There was a lot of leasing and sales activity in New York City this week. How about an approximately $1 billion, 15-property self-storage deal for starters? And a residential and retail building on the Upper East Side traded for nearly $24 million. And T.J. Maxx announced that it would be opening a major store in Herald Square. And global law firm Withers inked a sizable office lease at Rockefeller Center. 

Then, out in Brooklyn, a stalled development site sold in Williamsburg and a developer filed plans for a residential building in East Flatbush. For more on Brooklyn’s current CRE market, might we suggest a couple of recent features? One tackles the borough’s office market, and the other its industrial sphere. And, if that’s not enough, we also recently sat down with Lindsay Greene, CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, to discuss that economic development driver’s past, present and future.

Finally, re: Brooklyn — and if you want a piece that ties together the dynamics driving New York CRE now, including private capital, rezonings and major demographic shifts — check out our longread on the residential development scene in Gowanus. 

What’re we servin’ tonight — chicken or … chicken? 

Pop quiz: What’s been the second-fastest-growing retail chain in New York City since the pandemic, second only to Verizon stores?

Wow, you’re good. Yes, it’s Popeyes, the chicken chain. 

And other plucky chicken chains have been expanding briskly in Gotham and across the union, with more customers flocking to them and new investors circling to wet their beaks. OK, we’ll lay (heh) off the puns, and instead direct you to a deep dive into the race for chicken restaurant space in America. 

See you next week.