From left: 399 Park Avenue, the Standard Hotel, and the Time Warner Center (source: PropertyShark)

The owners of valuable Manhattan properties, including 399 Park Avenue, the Standard Hotel and the Time Warner Center got huge breaks in their property-tax assessments, according to the New York Post.

In 2009 and 2010, Boston Properties, which owns 399 Park Avenue, home to Citigroup, lowered the building’s assessment by $94 million and earned a $4.7 million tax break. Meanwhile, the Standard Hotel on Washington Street cut $12.5 million off its assessment value and the Time Warner Center’s assessment declined by $40.2 million. [Post] [more]

Larry Silverstein and 7 World Trade Center

Law firm WilmerHale is in talks to snap up more than 200,000 square feet at Silverstein Properties’ 7 World Trade Center, according to the New York Post. WilmerHale, which has a roster of over 1,000 attorneys in offices across the world, including Beijing, London and Frankfurt, would relocate from its current New York City office at 399 Park Avenue if the deal goes through. Although it was not immediately clear what the asking rent is, one source said the space WilmerHale is eyeing could fetch between $62 and $65 per square foot. [more]

Challenging a general corporate trend toward more open work spaces, Studley is moving four blocks uptown on Park Avenue to a new location that gives nearly all of its agents their own private office.

The 56-year-old commercial real estate advisory firm is moving from 300 Park Avenue at 50th Street to 399 Park Avenue between 53rd and 54th streets, where it will occupy the entire 61,000 square feet of the 11th floor previously leased to Lehman Brothers.

The Real Deal took an exclusive first look at the office space being readied for its nearly 140 agents and employees.

The company officially closed its old office yesterday at the end of the day and plans to reopen for business at the new location Monday. [more]

From left: Studley’s soiree was in its new offices at 399 Park Avenue; Charles
Rutenberg Realty celebrated the holidays at bowling alley Lucky Strike
Lanes, and Halstead Property held its bash at Guastavino’s at 409 East
59th Street, where Brown Harris Stevens also celebrated the season

In a real estate market that’s been challenging at best, knowing how to celebrate the bounty of the holidays is a tricky thing.

Celebrate too much and you risk looking out of touch with the economic climate. Too little, and your firm could look like it’s struggling.

“Perception is everything,” said Cindy Seidowitz, a senior vice president at Studley. It could seem terribly gauche, for example, “if [people] are canceling parties and scaling back and you’re throwing this lavish bash,” she added.

Most years commercial real estate firm Studley would decamp to a restaurant or club for its annual Christmas party — this year, it stuck to its home base. The firm, which is planning to move into its new 11th-floor office at 399 Park Avenue in the first quarter of 2010, decided to celebrate the holidays and its relocation to the 60,000-square-foot space by holding its annual holiday bash there. [more]

Click image for larger version

From the December issue: If the last 12 months have served as a humbling recalibration of the entire U.S. economy, then there is perhaps no urban office district more representative of America’s fall from opulence than the commercial stretch along Park Avenue in Midtown. For decades, it was the province of the financial titans, including JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers and UBS, whose paychecks and egos were matched, in part, by Park Avenue’s astronomical asking rents in its premier buildings. But now, much like its former white-gloved denizens, Park Avenue is an empty shell of its former self. The Park Avenue submarket — which runs from Grand Central to 59th Street — has fallen harder and faster than any other Manhattan submarket over the past 12 months. According to Cushman & Wakefield, from October 2008 to October 2009, average asking rents dropped 34.7 percent, from $108.57 per square foot to $70.85 per square foot. By comparison, overall asking rents in Manhattan fell 22 percent during the same period. [more]

From the December issue: Major lease deals signed at the Boston Properties trophy office building at 399 Park Avenue over the past month seemed to indicate the market was getting a boost. But the latest reports from the city’s commercial brokerage firms show continued slippage in Manhattan office leasing, and those mixed signals make it difficult for brokers to agree on what advice to give their clients. Erik Schmall, a senior managing director at commercial firm Studley, said at the start of the crisis, his firm counseled tenants to hold off on making deals. But that stance has softened recently, and the company believes low-priced space can be had at attractive pricing. “Whether we are at the bottom of the market or really close to it, we feel we are close enough where the quality of the deals we can get probably outweigh any possible further benefit,” he said. [more]

Forgiveness may be the key to success at 399 Park Avenue, where a perceived snub several weeks ago caused owner Boston Properties to swap hedge fund Avenue Capital for commercial brokerage Studley on an 11th-floor, 60,000-square-foot lease. Avenue Capital has since resumed talks with Boston, yesterday signing off on a 57,000-square-foot lease on the sixth floor of the former Lehman Brothers building. Boston’s leasing agent, John Powers of CB Richard Ellis, called the incident a “hiccup” from which the parties decided to “move on.” The result is a move that gets the hedge fund nearly the same amount of space as it would have had on the 11th floor, and a better layout than its current one at 535 Madison Avenue, where the company is fragmented across five floors. For Boston Properties, the deal means it has re-leased 85 percent of the former Lehman building in the span of less than one year. [more]

A perceived snub has reportedly resulted in a 60,000-square-foot lease on the 11th floor of 399 Park Avenue by commercial brokerage Studley, rather than hedge fund Avenue Capital Group. Avenue was edging in on a deal with 399 Park’s owner, Boston Properties, when Boston caught wind of a rumor that Avenue was still shopping around. Meanwhile, Studley was looking to expand beyond its current 40,000-square-foot location at 300 Park Avenue, and Boston capitalized on the opportunity. Boston agent John Powers of CB Richard Ellis offered the firm “a very attractive proposal” on that same 11th-floor space, a source told the Post’s Steve Cuozzo. A lease was signed within days. [Post]  [more]

Ken Moelis’ two-year-old investment bank, Moelis & Co., has signed a lease for 90,000 square feet at 399 Park Avenue between 53rd and 54th streets. This announcement comes during a challenging Manhattan office leasing environment, which has been crippled by tumbling asking prices and slow leasing velocity. In the last year, 399 Park Avenue saw Citigroup and Legg Mason return a combined 194,000 square feet to the market. But, as the New York Observer points out, Moelis is in a unique position to make this deal — it is one of the few investment banks that has grown during the recession. Since its founding in July 2007, Moelis’ employee roster has grown from just 10 to 230. In its last home, 245 Park Avenue, Moelis had a sublease on just 30,000 square feet, although Rohini Pragasam, a spokesperson for Moelis, would not disclose whether that was the total amount of space the bank was leasing.

1. City expected to lose $24 million from the mortgage and sales tax
exemptions granted to Atlantic Yards Nets arena [Brooklyn Paper]
2. ML Management Associates moves to new headquarters at 250 West 57th Street [NYT]
3. After 74 years, Manny’s Music closed on Sunday [NYT]
4. Planners say new concert hall in Coney Island would be quieter than the existing bandshell [NYDN]
5. City expands available funding for charter school construction to $3.8 billion [Post]
6. $25 million Tribeca home comes with private pool [NY Mag]
7. Large number of borrowers who took out $15,000 loans from Fannie Mae defaulted [NYT]
8. Real estate ads move from newspapers to the Web [Ad Age]
9. So far this year, just three homes listed for more than $16 million have sold [NYT]

10. Some buyers use “value price range” instead of one listing price for homes [NYT]

11. New York Crane allegedly knew the crane that collapsed on the Upper
East Side last year was faulty [Gothamist] and the parents of a
construction worker killed will mourn at the site [Newsday]
12. Problems expected for commercial non-performing loans [NMN]
13. Editorial on the Gowanus Canal clean-up [NYT]

14. Living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn [NYT]
15. Queensboro Bridge turns 100 years old [Gothamist]
16. Elad Properties gives tours of the Plaza [NYT]

17. GMAC, former financing arm of General Motors, subleases entire 18th floor of 1177 Sixth Avenue [Crain's]

18. Ex-Lehman Brothers workers move private equity fund to 399 Park Avenue, where Lehman had offices [Crain's]

19. Lucky’s Famous Burgers opening location at 264 West 23rd Street [Crain's]
20. Natasha Richardson’s will includes New York homes [Post]
[more]