Rupert Murdoch and 1211 Sixth Ave.

From the April issue: The 44-story tower at 1211 Sixth Avenue, home to Rupert Murdoch’s global media company News Corporation, is getting a major new tenant. Axis Re, a division of Axis Capital, the large Bermuda-based reinsurance company, signed a lease to move to 121,019 square feet on floors 24 through 26, data from CoStar Group shows. The asking rent for the three floors at the 1.8 million-square-foot tower, which is located between 47th and 48th streets, was $65 per square foot, leasing data website MrOfficeSpace.com shows. That price was a bit above the overall asking rent in Midtown, which in February was $57.97 per square foot, CBRE figures show. Click here to see the commercial market report in the April issue for more on the latest office trends.

From left: Grubb & Ellis’ Robert Von Ancken and real estate attorney Edgar Gentry

The optimistic, long-range revenue projections that were popular during the economic boom for valuing commercial buildings have lost favor as a result of the recent recession, and have been replaced with more sober, near-term figures, a top Grubb & Ellis appraiser said.

The industry shift to a more conservative approach follows drops in building values of more than 30 percent in Manhattan properties between 2007 and 2010, Robert Von Ancken, executive managing director of valuation and advisory services at Grubb & Ellis, said. He was speaking this morning in Midtown at an event organized by the Mortgage Bankers Association of New York. [more]

Honolulu

From the February issue: For those New York real estate professionals suffering from seasonal affective disorder, here is this month’s most unwanted news flash: The commercial market in Honolulu (yes, that Honolulu) has emerged as a rival to New York City — at least when it comes to a few key statistics. According to Moody’s CMBS index released last month, the New York Metro area scored a 77, ranking it second-best among the 56 cities tracked, behind — you guessed it — Honolulu, which scored an 81. “It is like the 90-pound weakling beating the world champ,” said Mike Hamasu, director of consulting and research for Colliers Monroe Friedlander in Honolulu and a native Hawaiian. [more]

Manhattan was the most active region in apartment building trades last year, followed by Brooklyn and then the Bronx, a new report released today from Ariel Property Advisors shows (see full report after the jump).

Buyers paid a total of $2.1 billion for 170 apartment building transactions last year in all of Manhattan. There were 99 trades in Brooklyn valued at $360 million, and 79 sales in the Bronx worth $315.9 million. Queens had the slowest year, with just 43 properties trading, totaling $212 million, the report indicates. TRD [more]

From the January issue: Manhattan’s commercial market bounced along the bottom for much of the last 12 months. But the start of the New Year brings fresh signs that landlords, even in the lagging Downtown market, are gaining back some of the leverage they lost over the past two years.
Both Midtown and Midtown South are beginning 2011 with good news — the availability rate has declined by over 2 points in the last year and the average asking rents have risen. And in Lower Manhattan, the only district of the three where the availability rate remains higher than it was one year ago, brokers reported signs that landlords are winning back some leverage. [more]

From the December issue: It’s the French to the rescue — sort of. In the largest lease deal of the year, Paris-based financial firm Societe Generale last month agreed to take up to 560,000 square feet at 245 Park Avenue, moving east from offices on Sixth Avenue in Rockefeller Center. And also last month, Natixis, a Paris- and Boston-based money manager, signed a 16-year deal for 182,200 square feet on the third, fourth and fifth floors at 1251 Sixth Avenue. A source said the actual starting rent was $59 per foot, and included $60 per foot in landlord improvements and 12 months of free rent. [more]

Peter Hauspurg of Eastern Consolidated

The Manhattan commercial real estate market is on the rise, according to Eastern Consolidated, which released its third-quarter market report today. Sales volume during the first three quarters of 2010 hit $9.4 billion, already surpassing activity during all of 2009, the report shows, when just $5.8 billion worth of transactions were completed. This is due in part to improving employment across the five boroughs — the report shows that 19,000 private sector jobs were added in the third quarter. Although the report said it’s too soon to be “sounding the trumpets,” Peter Hauspurg, Eastern’s chairman and CEO, said there’s reason to feel optimistic. “At this time last year, we could barely see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Hauspurg said. “But this quarter’s statistics confirm that we are now clearly out of the tunnel.” TRD

[more]

Is commercial real estate making a comeback nationwide? In this CNBC video, Marcus & Millichap analyst Hessam Nadji said that while investor sentiment is on the rise, the only sector staging a significant recovery thus far is the multi-family market.

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With the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation’s October decision to relocate 1,600 employees from an office at 55 Water Street in Manhattan’s Financial District to New Jersey, commercial real estate experts are suggesting that other large tenants may also follow suit. Accounting group Deloitte has suggested that it may relocate as many as 1,400 jobs from its two Manhattan office locations at Two World Financial Center and 1633 Broadway, over to New Jersey or Connecticut. As office space becomes increasingly expensive, New York City landlords are struggling to hold onto office tenants, the New York Observer reported. “Depository is perhaps the first of several we may see begin to explore” offices outside Manhattan, Pat Murphy, a vice chairman at CB Richard Ellis, said.

While the rest of Manhattan holds its breath for a commercial market collapse, Lower Manhattan has been experiencing dramatic ups and downs over the last nine years, according to a report
released today by Eastern Consolidated.
The market
freeze of September 2008 and the devastation of 9/11 led to a
preponderance of delayed developments and vacant retail
properties rarely seen in other neighborhoods, the report says. With more than 200 office buildings containing more than 100 million
square feet, Lower Manhattan is the third largest office submarket in
the U.S., yet the volume of office building sales has dropped dramatically in
2009, with just one office building sale so far this year. For all of last year, eight
buildings sold. During the peak year, 2007, 24 office buildings in the
neighborhood were sold. TRD [more]