From left: Richard Wagman, Karen Bellantoni, David LaPierre and Haim Chera

Retail tenants looking for new locations ought to snap up space in and around the yet-
to-be-constructed World Trade Center shopping complex, while those trying to avoid
distress should stay away from stretches of the Upper East Side, brokers at a retail panel
said yesterday.

Lower Manhattan will be the next hot area as neighborhoods like the Meatpacking
District mature, panelist Karen Bellantoni, executive vice president at Robert K.
Futterman & Associates, predicted.

“My sense is what is coming next is the retail at the World Trade Center and surrounding
areas,” she said, because the retail complex there below the destroyed Twin Towers was
very strong, and now the area has more residential apartments. [more]

From left: Robert Futterman, Jay Cross, Larry Silverstein, Stephen Siegel, Ronald Sernau, Laurie Golub and Steven Pozycki

Amid much back-slapping and cheerleading about the growth of Manhattan’s West Side at a panel yesterday that included developer Larry Silverstein, there was a hint that change could be afoot for the East Side of Midtown in the years to come. The millions of square feet of new office development being planned and built on the West Side in projects such as SJP Properties’ 11 Times Square and Related Companies’ Hudson Yards could lead owners of older Midtown office buildings — many of which are on the East Side — to convert them into residential apartments, following a pattern seen Downtown. [more]

While several of the city’s top brokers said the leasing market is approaching a floor for the current down cycle, potential office building buyers are preparing for years of further rent declines, real estate experts said at a forum this morning. “This is a unique city. It is at the bottom or close to [it],” Bruce Mosler, president and CEO of Cushman & Wakefield, said of office leasing in Manhattan. He was on a panel organized by business publisher Bisnow at Cooper Union. But just half an hour earlier at the same event, Michael Fascitelli, president and CEO of landlord Vornado Realty Trust, said potential buyers of office buildings were not predicting rents to increase for several years. He said that expected annual rent increases during the boom years, which were as high as 15 percent, are now at zero. And they could remain at zero for years. He added that to buy a building, a purchaser has to forecast a rent increase at some future time. [more]