From left: “Men in Black III” star Will Smith, 38 Greene Street and David Zar, president of Zar Properties (building photo source: PropertyShark)

“Men in Black III” has rented a 9,000-square-foot loft in Soho for “quadruple” the normal rent to film an Andy Warhol-themed party scene for the upcoming film, the New York Post reported. The asking rent for a seven-year lease of the second floor of 38 Greene Street, which features 20 wrap-around windows, was $43 per square foot, according to building owner David Zar, who leased the space himself. He’ll split the income with Logan Media, a production firm that had signed on to lease the space, and will move in once “Men in Black III” wraps the scene. The movie, which stars Will Smith, Alice Eve and Josh Brolin, has rented out several other spaces in the area. [Post] [more]

Italian fashion house Ter Et Bantine is expanding in Soho, moving its showroom one block south to a second-floor loft at Zar Property’s 50 Greene Street that’s more than double the size.

The label, which only just opened its 1,076-square-foot 76 Greene Street showroom last February, signed a long-term lease this week for its new, 3,500-square-foot space, David Zar, a principal at his family’s firm, told The Real Deal. The asking rent was $45 per square foot.

Cast Iron Real Estate represented Ter Et Bantine, while the landlord was represented in-house.

Meanwhile, Zar is still looking for a new tenant at its corner, multi-level retail space down the street, at 38 Greene, which hit the market in the fall. [more]

From left: Jamie Addeo of CresaPartners, 42 Green Street and David Zar of Zar Properties

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid newspaper, is opening its first office in New York City to house its online division. The publication has signed a four-year lease for 5,200 square feet at 42 Greene Street, between Grand and Broome streets, in Soho. Asking rent for the space was $45 per square foot for the fourth-floor space. The tabloid was originally looking for an office space in Midtown South, but ultimately felt that “the Soho vibe mirrored the image they want to portray,” Jamie Addeo of CresaPartners, who represented the Daily Mail, told Crain’s. TRD [more]

64-68 Wooster Street, Ivan Hakimian (middle) and LeBron James

One
might think, based solely on the media craze of the past few weeks,
that basketball mega-star LeBron James has the power to single-handedly
resuscitate the city’s economy, close the budget gap and return the
luxury real estate market back to its 2007 peak if he chooses to sign
with the Knicks tomorrow night. (The soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets would do
the trick, too!)

Perhaps that’s pushing it, but that hasn’t stopped the real estate
industry from courting the idea, and Zar [more]

From left: 64 Wooster Street, the fifth floor of 42 Greene Street

Two small production companies are touching down for 10 days each in vacant Soho spaces owned by Zar Property, according to David Zar, the company’s president.
The new pop-up shops are the latest in a trend that, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman’s retail veteran Faith Hope Consolo is “here to stay,” she told The Real Deal in January. The first space, a 1,600-square-foot penthouse at 42 Greene Street, previously housed a photographer’s studio. Blink productions, which is coming to the city to produce a half-hour documentary about the Tribeca film festival, plans to use the space to interview producers and directors involved in the event.
The fifth-floor loft has been vacant for three months and is currently on the market for $38 per square foot. In February, Zar rented out the ground-floor retail space in the building to Vanity Fair, which held Fashion Week-related events there for two weeks.

Temporary tenants like these have for several years provided a way for the city’s landlords to fill vacant spaces in the weeks between long-term leases. But they’ve have become more ubiquitous during the recession as commercial space languishes on the market with no permanent takers. [more]

Dario Zar, president at Zar Property NY, and 349 Fifth Avenue (Building photo source: PropertyShark)

The Midtown-based real estate firm Zar Property NY bought the JPMorgan Chase building at 349 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street across from the Empire State Building, for just under $20 million, David Zar, a vice president at Zar Property NY, told The Real Deal today. The purchase closed Dec. 15, Zar said, but he did not immediately provide an exact sale price. The sale has not yet appeared on the city’s public property Web site Acris. The price of about $300 per square foot for the 64,000-square-foot building was far higher than the bank received for a 1.1 million-square-foot property it is selling Downtown. JPMorgan Chase is in contract to sell 4 New York Plaza at Water Street for $108 million, or about $99 per square foot. The building was part of a nearly two-dozen-building portfolio that was put on the market earlier this year. The Fifth Avenue building merited the $300 price per foot, he said, because of the location across from the Empire State Building and the quality of the space, which was turned over fully furnished.  More

[more]

The pop-up shop at 50 Greene
Street featuring small designers and artists from Italy
for a week-long period will close today. David Zar, of Zar Property, leased the ground-floor,
3,800-square-foot space to the Milan Chamber of Commerce, which filled
the store with Italian retailers who have yet to break into the United
States market. The pop-up opened last Tuesday. Zar wouldn’t disclose the rent for the week, but did say it was a
“price we couldn’t refuse,” and that initially, he wasn’t interested
in putting a pop-up shop in the space because it’s being marketed with Sinvin
Realty for a full-time tenant. The asking rent for the Soho space is $100 a foot. Zar is currently in negotiations with another European city who wants to
open a pop-up with a similar concept in the space. TRD [more]