From left: SL Green CEO Marc Holliday, 280 Park Avenue (building photo source: PropertyShark), and Vornado Chairman Steven Roth

Vornado Realty Trust and SL Green Realty are planning a $60 million to $100 million transformation of the office towers at 280 Park Avenue that the partnership acquired for almost $500 million in April, according to the New York Post.

The group has commissioned architects KPF to oversee facade modifications to the structure, comprised of a 31-story tower and a 48-story tower that are connected by a 17-story middle building near 49th Street, and a complete renovation of the tower’s base and plaza and lobby. [more]

The 57-year-old privately held commercial advisory firm Studley entered the lucrative Manhattan retail leasing market for the first time, tapping Patrick Breslin, an executive in Grubb & Ellis’ retail operations, to lead the new East Coast division, the company announced this morning.

Michael Colacino, president of Studley, said the firm is adding retail in New York City because it believed it could profit by providing additional services to existing clients that have retail operations as well as earn relatively high commissions paid on retail deals.

This is not the first retail operation for Studley, which has store-leasing agents in Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago, but it is seeking to create a cohesive operation throughout the country. [more]

The Republic of Tanzania has purchased the Timekeeper Building, a six-story office property at 307 East 53rd Street near the United Nations, for $24.5 million, according to public records filed with the city today.

The 40,000-square-foot, six-story building, between First and Second avenues, was put on the market by Philadelphia-based real estate investment firm Amerimar Enterprises in September 2010. Robert Garrish, Paul Gillen and Darcy Stacom of CB Richard Ellis were hired to market the property.

Amerimar purchased the property from a company named Mittman Associates for $15.45 million in 2005.  [more]

The New York City Human Resources Administration has inked a 20-year lease for 400,000 square feet at a 10-story building at 470 Vanderbilt Avenue in the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn, the New York Times reported, in what is, so far, the biggest real estate deal in Brooklyn in 2011 and brings the building to 85 percent occupancy.

“The building is huge — an entire city block — and it has basically sat vacant and derelict for years,” said Steven Hurwitz, the vice president of acquisitions and developments at GFI Development, the company that owns the ground lease. It was not immediately clear how this lease fits in with the administration’s previously reported plans to move into 4 World Trade Center. [more]

Joe Moinian and 3 Columbus CircleJoseph Moinian’s 3 Columbus Circle is close to landing its first major tenant since undergoing a $100 million renovation, the New York Post reported. The Y&R division of ad company WPP Group, which also owns Ogilvy & Mather and Grey, among others, is reportedly in talks for 350,000 square feet in the building through CB Richard Ellis tri-state CEO Mary Ann Tighe.

It would mark a major milestone for Moinian, who had deals aligned last year with the WIlliam Morris Agency and HQ Global Workplaces for a total of 110,000 square feet, before the Related Companies moved to foreclose on the property. [more]

From left: Dean Rosenzweig, vice president of retail services at CB Richard Ellis, and Manhattan locations of Think Coffee, Starbucks and Ninth Street Espresso

Perhaps because of changing tastes, a widespread backlash against Starbucks or lower retail rents, high-end coffee shops are making their mark on New York City real estate and expanding rapidly.

As the New York Times reported, Ninth Street Espresso, Roasting Plant, Jack’s Stir Brew, Gregory’s Cafe, Think Coffee, MUD, Blue Bottle Coffee, Cafe Grumpy, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Intelligentsia Coffee and Joe the Art of Coffee are just some of the new breed of coffee makers, homegrown or imported from elsewhere in the country, that have descended upon the city with multiple locations in the last few years.

Coffee shops depend on volume so many are opening in office neighborhoods, retail brokers say, although the addition of baked items and packaged beans help them stay viable in residential neighborhoods where rents can be lower. [more]

Benjamin Lambert (left), founder and
chairman of Eastdil Secured, and company
CEO Roy March in the firm’s
Midtown headquartersFrom the September issue: Google’s record $1.8 billion purchase of 111 Eighth Avenue late last year momentarily put the name Eastdil Secured on the lips of everyone in New York’s real estate industry. But the low-profile real estate investment banking firm, which managed the sale, doesn’t have the street-level cachet that many of its rivals have.

While Manhattan’s building-sales brokers and financiers (those who focus on large institutional deals, often over $100 million) know the firm as a powerhouse, many others in real estate still have no idea who Eastdil is. [more]

Gregory Kraut, formerly of CB Richard Ellis, and 100 Church Street

Canadian commercial property firm Avison Young continued its American expansion kick with its first hire in Manhattan, tapping a mid-level CB Richard Ellis leasing broker, Gregory Kraut, to start the difficult task of building a New York City office.

Kraut, who had been at CBRE for six years focusing on representing tenants, was most recently a first vice president working closely with David Hollander, a company senior vice president. Thirty-five-year-old Kraut was hired this month and will be a principal at the new firm.

The Real Deal reported in June that Avison Young, a private, independent firm headed by CEO Mark Rose was looking to open an office in Manhattan. Young brokers have been in high demand recently. Last week Eric Anton and Ronald Solarz, both in their 40s, left Eastern Consolidated for real estate investment firm Brookfield Financial, and earlier this month Oklahoma-based net lease brokerage Stan Johnson opened an office in Manhattan with former Massey Knakal agent Jason Maier. [more]

From left: 475 Fifth Avenue, Darcy Stacom, vice chairman at CBRE and
William Shanahan, vice chairman at CBRE

Pension fund giant TIAA-CREF purchased the 280,000-square-foot office building 475 Fifth Avenue from Barclays Capital Real Estate this week for $144 million, about $4 million more than expected, according to sources involved in with the transaction.

The deal closed Wednesday, sources said, at sale price of about $514 per square foot. Midtown-based TIAA-CREF had been expected to buy the building, but for $140 million or less.

A joint venture of real estate developer Joseph Moinian and Westbrook Capital acquired 475 Fifth Avenue, located at 41st Street, in 2007 for $160 million, but lender Barclays took the property back in 2009 through a deed in lieu of foreclosure. In the slow commercial real estate market of the time, Barclays sought to unload the 86-year-old office tower for just $105 million. Comments

Clockwise from top left: Gary Greenspan, executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield; CB Richard Ellis Chairman Stephen Siegel; 7 WTC; Peter Turchin, executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis and Michael Burgio, executive vice president of Cushman & Wakefield Seven World Trade Center is now fully leased, according to Silverstein Properties, which signed MSCI to a 20-year lease for the final 125,000 available square feet on floors 47 through 49. MSCI, which provides investment decision support tools, is moving its world headquarters to the 52-story tower from One Chase Plaza, and will consolidate its New York City operations in the space by the middle of next year.

Gary Greenspan and Michael Burgio, executive vice presidents at Cushman & Wakefield, represented MSCI, while an internal Silverstein Properties team together with CB Richard Ellis Chairman Stephen Siegel and executive vice president Peter Turchin, also of CBRE, negotiated the lease. – Adam Fusfeld
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