Sunday Summary: Feats of Strength

The calendar year news-wise typically ends in shrugged-off table scraps. This one is going out with a thumping postprandial bellypat of big moves and deals.

Let’s start the weekly rewind down in sunny South Florida, where one of the largest land deals ever in the region — for 2025 or otherwise — closed. Oak Row Equities and Mariposa Real Estate sealed their $520 million deal for a waterfront site in Miami’s coveted Brickell. The site is zoned for 3 million square feet of development.

Also in South Florida, French hotelier Philippe Le Guennec bought the Kimpton Angler’s Hotel in Miami Beach for $43.5 million. The new owner plans to renovate the place. Meanwhile, the developer behind a condo tower in Fort Lauderdale obtained about $100 million more in financing for the 28-story project.

Locales up the East Coast got in on the action, too. In the D.C. area, South Korea’s Samsung Biologics bought its first manufacturing plant in the U.S. as part of a $280 million acquisition of biopharma company Human Genome Sciences. It’s one of the biggest life sciences real estate trades of 2025 anywhere. 

Farther north on I-95, chilly New York City hosted several sizable deals. The shuttered 611-key Stewart Hotel in Midtown, for one, traded for $255 million. New owners Slate Property Group and nonprofit Breaking Ground plan to convert the property into 579 permanently affordable apartments. 

Also on the affordable housing front in Gotham, the joint venture behind a project of well over 300 units a half-mile from Yankee Stadium secured more than $255 million in construction financing. (We would also direct you to some exclusive commentary from former New York City Councilmember Carlina Rivera, now the CEO and president of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing. She writes this week about the affordable housing plans for incoming mayors throughout New York state. We also had this week an in-depth interview with Deborah La Franchi, founder and CEO of SDS Capital Group, an L.A. investment firm that targets affordable housing preservation and development.)

What’s more, wholesaler My Sales sold its Ridgewood, Queens, warehouse for $28 million. Plus, William Macklowe Company secured some major financing for its acquisition of the 19-story office building at 291 Broadway. 

And, on the leasing front, financial analytics giant Moody’s capped weeks of speculation by signing a 460,000-square-foot lease at Brookfield’s 200 Liberty Street. The deal nicely bookends what’s turned out to be an unusually healthy year for Lower Manhattan’s office market. 

There were other notable leases, too. A new PR firm picked Jon Krasner’s 40 Thompson Street in SoHo for its headquarters. (Speaking of busy areas for deal-making this year, SoHo probably led the entire city.) Also, coworking concern Jay Suites leased 30,000 square feet at 41 Flatbush Avenue in Fort Greene for its first-ever Brooklyn outpost. 

Moreover, at 505 Eighth Avenue, GFP Real Estate signed three new tenants, while Vornado Realty signed a 10-year lease with a French consultancy for 43,000 square feet at its Penn 2 tower. And a Japanese insurance holding company consolidated its New York offices in the Durst Organization’s 825 Third Avenue. 

Finally, in New York, the city’s longtime economic development chief, Andrew Kimball, announced he was stepping down as mayoral administrations change. Speaking of changes, Maureen Waters, CEO of commercial real estate sustainability data tracker Measurabl, gave Commercial Observer her first in-depth interview since assuming the top role at the start of December. 

‘I find tinsel distracting.’

Of course, it wasn’t all merriment this last full week of 2025. Out in the environs of Tinseltown (or what’s left of the L.A. entertainment industry), Witkoff and Pacific Investment Management Company defaulted on more than $400 million in debt connected to a Santa Monica apartment complex. 

And an authoritative new report on the state of chain retail in New York City found that the number of such stores in the five boroughs declined in 2025 for the sixth time in the past eight years. Starbucks led the decline. The coffee chain has confronted myriad challenges this year in New York and nationwide. 

We also deep-dived this week into the unintentional ill effects of a New York City property tax tweak. The annual Real Property Income & Expense evaluation, which turns 40 next year, often ensnares nonprofits and smaller landlords in a web of costly red tape that even when sliced through can lead to fines. 

‘It’s a Festivus miracle!’ 

One of the meta-stories of this busy, busy year was the inexorable rise of Zohran Mamdani from Albany backbencher to front-runner to lead the nation’s largest city and its capital of finance, real estate, insurance, law, the arts, etc.

It began in June, when the Queens assemblyman, an avowed democratic socialist with no living memory of the bad old days of Gotham in the 1970s and 1980s, bested former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary. It continued through the summer and fall as incumbent Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race, and an independently running Cuomo died a second (or maybe third) political death in broad daylight. Mamdani won the general election last month with widespread demographic, ideological and geographic support. 

Along the way, business leaders, including those in commercial real estate, fell over themselves to oppose — if not outright condemn — Mamdani. Their most strident threats centered around abandoning New York altogether investment-wise, if not physically. Miami seemed the go-to residency alternative. 

Things appear to have changed dramatically, however, since Mamdani’s convincing general election victory. Maybe it’s his staffing decisions, including the retention of Jessica Tisch as police commissioner. Or his meetings with business leaders, including in commercial real estate. Or just the guy’s sunny comportment (heck, even Donald Trump — whom Mamdani routinely knocked on the hustings — has become a fan). 

That’s our longread recommendation for this last weekend of 2025: CRE’s seemingly preternatural turnaround toward Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, and what it means for the industry going forward.

Happy New Year! Be safe, and we’ll see you next week.