Joseph Harbert
Cushman & Wakefield COO Joseph Harbert has jumped ship for Colliers International, the Seattle-based brokerage looking to raise its New York City profile, Crain’s reported. Harbert will lead Colliers’ expansion into new sectors such as retail and capital markets, and serve as president of the Eastern region. The veteran broker had also previously worked for CBRE, Crain’s said. [more]
Michael Cohen, president at Colliers International
Occupancy and average asking rents grew in the first quarter of 2012, but the volume of office leasing was down, according to data released today by Colliers International. Overall Manhattan asking rents increased to $55.01 per square foot, up from $54.23 per square foot quarter-over-quarter. Vacancy declined, to 5.8 percent, a decrease from 5.9 percent in the previous quarter and from 6.7 percent year-over-year, the numbers show. [more]
28-46 West 23rd Street (credit: PropertyShark)
The landlords of 28-46 West 23rd Street are considering adding floors to the top of the Midtown South office building and the home of Home Depot, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, the New York Observer reported.
The plan is still in the works, according to the paper, but the owners, including Colliers International President Michael Cohen, hope to utilize unclaimed air rights as the building lies in the submarket which boasts the nation’s lowest commercial vacancy rate. Since the building is landmarked, the changes will need to be approved and not significantly alter the building’s key original features. The plan is to add space and spruce up the top floors. [more]
Though historically averse to social media and online marketing, the commercial real estate sector is increasingly giving these tools a shot, CoStar News reported.
“Clearly social media is still a divisive issue in commercial real estate — the difference in sentiment between enthusiastic adopters and major detractors parallels the sentiments in other industries driven by client relations, such as non-profits and law firms,” said Angela Brown, external communications manager for CoStar Group. [more]
Andrew Roos, vice chairman at Colliers International, who was victimized by his secretary
The former GVA Williams Midtown administrative assistant who was convicted of stealing $3 million from executive Andrew Roos in 2008, was denied parole earlier this month, the New York Observer reported.
Agnes Dickinson, now 59, will continue her 13-year sentence at Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan, according to the New York State Department of Corrections, because she remains a threat. Dickinson was found guilty of grand larceny, forgery and money laundering, according to the Observer. She began serving time in 2008. [more]
Gary Barnett’s Extell Development is putting its leasehold interest in an office property at 175 Varick Street on the market, following a large leasing deal at the building last month, the New York Observer reported. Jones Lang LaSalle’s Richard Baxter has been tapped to market the deal to potential buyers. The asking price wasn’t immediately available. Earlier this month, Extell found a tenant, WeWork, a flexible office space provider, to take a 75,000-square-foot, 15-year lease at 175 Varick Street. JLL represented WeWork in the deal. Colliers International represented Extell. … [more]
Mark Rose, CEO of Avison YoungFrom the November issue: Real estate executives are quietly fuming over what they say are aggressive bonuses that several new and expanding commercial firms are paying to poach brokers.
The past two months have been a particularly active time for brokers shifting alliances, partly because some firms have stumbled in the weak economy and make for soft targets, and partly because brokerages with a national presence are expanding into the New York market, which remains one of the strongest in the nation. In the last few months, the firms Avison Young, Stan Johnson, Lee & Associates and Brookfield Financial have all made plays to open or expand in New York. … [more]
International office space giant Regus, known for offering flexible long- and short-term leasing solutions for individuals and businesses, is expanding its presence in Manhattan, with two new office space options next month, plus at least one next year.
The company will be opening a 40,000-square-foot space at the William Kaufman Organization’s 77 Water Street and a 13,000-square-foot space at J.A.B. Madison Associates’ 477 Madison Avenue in November, Colleen Susini, director for the New York area at Regus, said. The two openings are part of a larger initiative to expand the company’s presence in New York City, which will also include an office at 411 Lafayette Street at the beginning of 2012. Details of the Lafayette Street space were not yet available. … [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]
More than half of the surveyed stores closed by some of the nation’s largest big-box retailers in 2008 and 2009 remain vacant, according to a Colliers International report cited by the Wall Street Journal. The survey examined 233 of the 1,259 stores closed by Circuit City, Linens n’ Things, Mervyn’s and Gottshcalks, and found that replacement tenants in the large retail centers paid 17.9 percent less per month than their closed predecessors. That survey is a microcosm of the big-box retail landscape as a whole, where vacancy rates declined to 7 percent in the first quarter of 2011 — down from the 7.5 percent highs in early 2010 — but only because rent has declined 6.4 percent since the second quarter of 2008, according to a separate report released by Reis. Landlords are struggling to balance the costs associated with signing big retail tenants for substantially smaller rents and those associated with anchor vacancies causing other stores to vacate the outdoor shopping centers…. [more]
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