Akira Mori

Spurred by the strength of the yen, Japanese billionaire Akira Mori is planning a 100 billion yen — $1.2 billion — prime real estate shopping spree in major world markets, including New York, London and Tokyo, Bloomberg News reported. The plan represents the first investment of this scale by Mori since 2008.

The Mori Trust Co. is specifically looking for office towers, and developments that are energy efficient, equipped with disaster-prevention systems and able to hold value through market downturns. According to Mori, New York offers just this sort of investment opportunity. [more]

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From the November issue: The price of entry for Forbes magazine’s list of 400 wealthiest Americans is going up. The last person on this year’s list clocked in with a net worth of $1.1 billion — which was up $50 million from last year. However, New York City’s real estate titans are (with one big exception) keeping pace.

Indeed, most of the 10 New York real estate moguls who made the list, which was released in late September, saw their net worth increase in the last 12 months. Yet one big name dropped off this year: Steven Roth of Vornado Realty Trust. [more]

From the October issue:

Brokers Nikki Field and Kevin Brown of Sotheby’s International Realty at the construction site at One57

Extell Development’s new luxury condo tower, One57, has already done some $1 billion in sales, and most of its überwealthy buyers have had to envision their new apartments from floor plans and renderings.

But a few lucky buyers — and their brokers — have had the chance to visit the building’s construction site, sampling the views from the top floors of the 1,000-foot-high glass tower, which will be the tallest residential skyscraper in Manhattan when it’s completed in 2013. [more]

Gary Barnett and One57

The so called “billionaire’s club” that has recently formed on the top 15 floors of Midtown’s One57 building, has developer Gary Barnett worried about a possible “gripe fest,” according to the New York Times. Several of the new owners of the building’s top sections have commissioned their own
designers to finish their full-floor apartments and the construction could become a potential disturbance to their well-heeled and fussy neighbors.

“This was a major, major issue for us,” Barnett said. “We don’t want our people who are buying and accepting our finishes to be sitting there for three or four years while tons of construction goes on in the building and people build out their spaces. It ties up elevators and creates dust and noise. We are doing everything possible to avoid that.” [more]