Stephen Ross, chairman of the Related Companies, and the Time Warner Center

The Samsung Experience showroom is departing the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle in January, the New York Post reported, as 10-year leases signed at the center when the project opened begin to expire.

Samsung’s departure from the third floor, as well as the closure of the Borders bookstore space on the second floor, which is now vacant after the chain went bankrupt, leaves building owner the Related Companies with some interesting leasing options, the Post noted. The 10,000-square-foot Samsung space could be combined with the Borders space to create a duplex. [more]

Related Companies CEO Stephen Ross and the Shops at Columbus Circle

To the surprise of early critics, the Shops at Columbus Circle have been a resounding success, and now Related Companies is revamping the mall’s tenants in hopes of boosting profits, Crain’s reported.
Wary of a mall in Manhattan, some high-priced retailers shunned the mall when it launched seven years ago. But now that it has proven successful, Related is pushing some lower-revenue tenants to leave before their 10-year leases expire, in the interest of finding luxury — and higher-paying — tenants. Crain’s said over the next 18 months about a dozen new, mostly high-fashion stores, will come to the mall. [more]

LeBron James and the Time Warner Center unit

Could New York City’s campaign to lure Cavaliers star LeBron James to our turf be paying off? The basketball star has reportedly looked at a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom unit at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle, according to the Observer. James browsed a 63rd-floor listing priced at $14.95 million or $5,671 per square foot. The condo features views of Central Park, the Hudson River and floor-to-ceiling windows. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Sherri Shang has the listing, which is also available for rent for $45,000 per month. [NYO via Curbed]

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LeBron James and the Time Warner Center unit

Could New York City’s campaign to lure Cavaliers star LeBron James to our turf be paying off? The basketball star has reportedly looked at a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom unit at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle, according to the Observer. James browsed a 63rd-floor listing priced at $14.95 million or $5,671 per square foot. The condo features views of Central Park, the Hudson River and floor-to-ceiling windows. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Sherri Shang has the listing, which is also available for rent for $45,000 per month. [NYO via Curbed]

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While there was little or no change in asking rents in Midtown and Midtown South last month, Downtown saw a moderate drop after landlords cut prices in anticipation of higher vacancy rates in the coming months, a new Manhattan office leasing report covering February from commercial service firm Jones Lang LaSalle shows.

The average asking rents in Midtown did not change from January, at $59.43 per square foot, while in Midtown South, the average asking rents rose by 3 cents from the prior month to $43.79 per foot, JLL reported.

But Downtown, asking rents fell by 31 cents in February to $36.97 per square foot, the data show.

James Delmonte, a JLL vice president and director of research, said that for Manhattan, overall pricing has flattened compared to the steep drops seen last year, but Downtown asking rents dipped as landlords expected more available space to be put on the market.

“There are adjustments in pricing ahead of [an] anticipated continued rise in vacancy rates,” he said. [more]

In their first official response to the bankruptcy filing of 20 Bayard, lawyers for W Financial Fund last week urged a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to reject a motion by developer Isaac Hager to continue operating the Williamsburg condominium with monthly rent and parking fees. Hager, president of North Development Group, threw the 64-unit condo into bankruptcy last month, when he was unable to make a $170,000 interest payment to W Financial, or refinance a $17.4 million bridge loan. In a Dec. 9 filing, Martin Ehrenfeld, restructuring officer for the developer, asked permission to use the rent and parking fees to cover monthly maintenance charges for at least 120 days until a reorganization plan is worked out with creditors. After selling 24 apartments before the real estate market collapsed in 2008, Hager rented out nearly all of the remaining units until the condo market recovered. According to the court documents, 20 Bayard has $1.28 million in net operating income per year. [more]

The new Apple store at 1981 Broadway

“Critical mass,” admittedly, is an overused term, unless you take a professional interest in particle physics, and I don’t. But I know it when I see it on the streets of New York, and I have just seen it on the Upper West Side. As anyone who has walked along Broadway from Columbus Circle to 72nd Street can attest, this stretch of Manhattan has been continually improving over the past 10 years. And as someone who grew up right around there, I can assure you that it is incalculably finer, safer and more fun than it ever was in the 1970s. But it wasn’t until, on a recent winter evening, that I passed the new Apple Store at 1981 Broadway on the northwest corner of 67th Street, that I understood what was afoot. The new Apple store succeeds in being even bolder and more inventive
than the cube in front of Edward Durrell Stone’s GM Building on Fifth
Avenue and 59th Street.  More

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1775 Broadway, where Kohl’s was reportedly looking to open its first Manhattan site (source: PropertyShark)

From the December issue: This holiday shopping season, the biggest sale in Manhattan just might be for flagship space. As 2009 draws to a close, the anemic pace of major retail leasing — the five major Manhattan retail submarkets tracked by Cushman & Wakefield scored just one deal over 10,000 square feet this year, compared to 11 across the same five submarkets in 2008 — has started picking up. Following a deal by furniture retailer Raymour & Flanagan for 30,000 square feet in August, brokers say tenants are finally looking around, after almost zero activity in the first half of the year. Bradley Mendelson, an executive director of Cushman & Wakefield, told The Real Deal he had a signed commitment last month from a tenant for 16,500 square feet of corner and second-floor space at 666 Fifth Avenue, perhaps the most prominent of a slew of major flagship vacancies across Manhattan.  More

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