From left: Midtown Manhattan and Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of tri-state region for CBRE

Manhattan office leasing finished 2011 with gradual but steady improvement in asking rents, according to data released today by CBRE.

The exception is Midtown South, where the “glow of Google,” as Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of the tri-state region for CBRE, called it, pushed 2011 absorption to 2.19 million square feet — the highest for that market since 1997. In Midtown South, the overall availability rate fell to 8.8 percent in December, down slightly from November, the largest monthly drop since 2005, according to the figures presented by CBRE at its fourth-quarter media breakfast this morning.  [more]

From left: Stephen Siegel and Peter Turchin of CBRE and 218 West 18th Street

A joint venture between Atlas Capital Group and GreenOaks Real Estate Partners has purchased the defaulted note on a recently redeveloped 172,000-square-foot Chelsea office property, Crain’s reported, and has brought in a new leasing team to attract tenants to the building. [more]

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 each has its own large management team charged with day-to-day operations of its portfolio of assets. But the Wall Street Journal reported that when the two firms teamed to take control of 280 Park Avenue, they made the unusual move of hiring an outside firm, CBRE Group, to manage the Midtown office tower, rather than pick between one of its own divisions.

The move to hire CBRE quelled concerns over how the two huge real estate firms would work together on a single asset. Though the Journal said leases at the building do still take longer to close, and the companies reportedly disagreed over which architect to hire for the $100 million renovation of the building, SL Green executives said the partnership has worked well. [more]

From left: Darcy Stacom, vice chairman of CBRE, and 711 Third AvenueSL Green Realty has pulled 711 Third Avenue from the market three months after tapping Darcy Stacom, vice chairman of CBRE to market the property.

According to Crain’s, the landlord reneged because it did not receive offers in the range of $200 million to $225 million that it had expected for the 580,000-square-foot office tower between 44th and 45th streets. SL Green owns the leasehold and a 50 percent interest in the ground beneath the building. [more]

Airy, open-plan office spaces, once seen as difficult to rent, are commanding some of the highest office rents in Manhattan since the recession, the New York Times reported, some more than $100 a square foot. These spaces, with dramatic city views, can be found in Midtown towers like 499 Park Avenue and 250 West 55th Street, the Times said, as well as downtown at 1 and 3 World Trade Center, now under construction.

Also desirable for their floor plans are buildings like 51 Astor Place, 28-40 West 23rd Street and 30 Rockefeller Center, where investment company Lazard is redesigning its 430,000 square feet on the top floors.

“Constantly now, we see firms wanting to build dramatic space,” said Peter Turchin, an executive vice president at CBRE. [more]

From left: Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan, vice chairmen of CBRE, and 4 New York PlazaThe 1.1 million-square-foot office tower at 4 New York Plaza is being marketed for a sale by a Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan-led CBRE Group team, according to the New York Post.

The building, at 115 Broad Street near Water Street, is 95 percent occupied, thanks largely to an 800,000-square-foot lease held by JPMorgan Chase that runs through 2025. The New York Daily News and American Media are also tenants of the building.

The building is owned by Virginia-based Harbor Group, which purchased the building for just $108 million — a recession-friendly price, according to the Post — in January 2010. [more]

REBNY head Stephen Spinola

From the December issue: The more than 12,000 members of the Real Estate Board of New York will soon be reaching for their checkbooks to send their annual dues to the influential trade group. And there’s no doubt many will be engaging in a yearly cost-benefit analysis of the nonprofit’s value.

Members pay more than $6 million per year in dues — which are supposed to be in on Jan. 1 — and the group takes in several million more through its annual gala and other income that make up its approximately $9 million annual budget.

The 115-year-old organization is the undisputed top real estate organization in the city, and presents a powerful and unified public front. But there are rumblings of discontent, partly because it operates with a lopsided distribution of power. For example, building owners and residential firms are contributing roughly the same amount of money to the organization, but owners outnumber residential brokers on the board 10 to 1. 

[more]

Retail conglomerate Limited Brands has inked a deal for almost 100,000 square feet of office space at 1740 Broadway, at 56th Street, the New York Observer reported.

The company, which owns retailers such as Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works, has signed for floors 14 through 17 in a 10-year lease, engineered to coincide with the expiration of their other space in the Vornado-owned building, where they currently lease approximately another 400,000 square feet.

Sources told the Observer that the rent was in the $60s per square foot. [more]

From left: Mary Ann Tighe of CBRE, Jimmy Kuhn of Newmark and 3 Columbus CircleAdvertising behemoth the Young & Rubicam Group will move into 340,000 square feet at SL Green’s 3 Columbus Circle, in a commercial condominium purchase and lease, the New York Times reported. The move marks the last major advertising agency to defect from Madison Avenue, the street that is synonymous with the industry as a whole.

Young & Rubicam took a condo interest in 214,372 square feet on floors three through eight, and signed a 20-year lease for 124,760 square feet on floors 9, 10, 18 and 19 at the 26-story tower. Three Columbus Circle, also known as 1775 Broadway, occupies the entire block between Eighth Avenue and Broadway at 59th Street. The deal includes naming rights for the building.
[more]

From left: Former CBRE Group broker Jon Zuckerman, now an executive managing director at Newmark Knight Frank, CBRE brokers Mary Ann Tighe and Stephen Siegel, former CBRE tri-state President Mitchell Rudin, current president of U.S. operations for Brookfield Properties, and
Keith Caggiano, vice president at CBRE

The word on the street has always been that it’s a dog-eat-dog world in the city’s largest commercial brokerage firms, but brokers rarely reveal how the cutthroat maneuvering plays out.

But now, in a bombshell lawsuit filed this month, former CBRE Group broker Jon Zuckerman provides an inside account claiming he was forced to resign and give up his lucrative MetLife account while CBRE allegedly sought to consolidate control over his clients.

The suit only names the commercial property firm CBRE (under the name CB Richard Ellis Real Estate Services) and Zuckerman’s former partner, broker Keith Caggiano, and does not name MetLife or other CBRE executives. [more]