Ben Friedland, senior vice president at CBRE

From the June issue: As New York City real estate is to the country, the Plaza District seems to be to New York: The last to fall and the first to rise. In this month’s Q & A, The Real Deal talked to commercial brokers, analysts and building managers about the office district — one of the toniest commercial submarkets in Manhattan.

They said that while rents there declined by over 40 percent during the recession, they have shot up by as much as 32 percent in the last year, and the district is outperforming other high-profile commercial submarkets like Times Square in its recovery.

While rents are still far off from their peak and landlords are still offering concessions, the market has attracted headlines lately for how quickly it appears to be tightening — particularly on the high end. For more on which buildings are performing best, what kinds of concessions are being offered and where the bargains are, we turn to our panel of experts. Click here or on Ben Friedland’s image to see what he and other commercial real estate insiders had to say about the Plaza District.

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

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