From left: a rendering of University Center and Douglas Durst, chairman of the Durst Organization

With campus space becoming increasingly tight, the New School enlisted the Durst Organization and architect Skidmore Owings & Merrill to develop and design a new $353 million academic and dormitory space, dubbed the University Center, on Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village.

But now a couple who lives next door to the construction site is claiming the project has shifted their five-story condominium building at 5 East 13th Street by at least four inches and is causing the gradual destruction of their home. [more]

From the November issue: New York is, of course, the shopping (and eating) capital of the country — if not the world. But what do the latest concerns about a double-dip recession mean for the countless stores, restaurants and shops packed into Manhattan?

In this month’s Q & A, The Real Deal talked to Manhattan retail brokers about how the retail market — which tanked in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown — is holding up.

Brokers said they are seeing strong rents and activity in prime areas like Fifth Avenue, Time Square, Soho and the Upper West Side. But, they say, secondary and tertiary submarkets are hurting, with continuing declines in asking rents and increases in vacancy rates. [more]

From left: 4 Times Square; John Grotto, senior leasing manager at Durst Organization, and Tom Bow, senior vice president of leasing at the Durst Organization; and a crowd shot at the Wednesday night’s event

There’s a rumor floating in real estate circles that the vacant retail space in 4 Times Square at the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway is accounted for. Last night, the Durst Organization held a party for brokers to show off the space, in part, to prove those rumors false.

“It’s frustrating when you reach out to a respected brokerage and you hear them say, ‘I thought that space was taken,’” John Grotto, senior leasing manager at the Durst Organization, told The Real Deal.

Durst Organization President Douglas Durst and more than 100 brokers were on hand to tour the 42,550-square-foot, three-floor space and enjoy ribs, brisket and mac and cheese from Virgil’s Real Barbecue — so much of it, in fact, that the restaurant was begging lingering brokers to take leftovers home. [more]

World Trade Center siteFrom the September issue: Construction crews have been working feverishly at the World Trade Center site in anticipation of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks later this month.

But when families and friends of the victims gather there for the commemorative ceremony and the opening of the National September 11 Memorial, they will also see major progress at many of the buildings around them.

Indeed, lately — after years of delays and political infighting — steel has been rising rapidly at the 16-acre site.

Just to the north of the memorial, attendees will see the new $3.2 billion 1 World Trade Center, the most expensive office building ever constructed in the city, built to about the 80th floor. To the east, they will see the construction at three additional tower sites.

While much has been written about the progress at ground zero in a piecemeal fashion, this month, The Real Deal takes a closer at look how all of the pieces fit together — and how the finances pencil out for the developers. [more]

Clockwise: Durst Fetner Residential’s Hal Fetner, 855 Sixth Avenue, Baruch Singer, Yitzhak Tessler of Tessler Development and Douglas Durst of Durst Organization

From the August issue: For the owners of distressed properties, it’s a harrowing ride to stabilization. Note sale, foreclosure, bankruptcy or recapitalization, there is no easy path from financial trouble to stable footing. And while some savvy investors have seized control of valuable New York City properties, many owners and lenders have lost billions of dollars through distressed real estate sales and restructurings since the financial crisis began. This month The Real Deal examines five deals and how they unfolded. In the third part of the series, we look at 855 Sixth Avenue, a development site just a few blocks south of Herald Square where Durst Fetner Residential stepped in and is preparing to erect a 500,000-square-foot building — 300,000 of which will be devoted to 350 rental units (80 percent market rate and 20 percent “affordable”). There will also be a 325-key, 130,000-square-foot hotel, and 90,000 square feet of retail. Click here to read the story. [more]

From the June issue: In New York, where real estate often runs in the family, Richard Maidman, 78, fits right in. He is chairman of Townhouse Management Company, which grew out of a dress company founded in 1933 by his father, William, and he works alongside his son Mitchel, who serves as the company’s president. But the Maidmans may be most closely associated with another real estate clan, the Dursts. For decades, the two families haggled over 113 West 42nd Street, a narrow high-rise owned by the Maidmans that the Dursts needed to raze to make way for the Bank of America tower. Both sides finally struck a deal, and the Dursts picked up the building for a reported $13 million. Today, Townhouse, which owns or manages 60 rentals, co-ops and condos in Manhattan and the Bronx, is leasing 35-39 East 63rd Street, a new luxury rental where one bedroom rents average $10,000. Maidman’s office, meanwhile, is decidedly more modest, shoehorned into the basement of a Midtown high-rise where the rent is $27 a foot. Click here to see Maidman’s desk.

Douglas Durst, chairman of the Durst Organization, said he has no current plans to acquire any more buildings in Manhattan because prices are not corresponding with value. “During the recent recession… prices just never came down to a level that we were comfortable with,” Durst said in an interview in the Wall Street Journal. “And now they’re rising again.” As for his recent investment in 1 World Trade Center, Durst said his firm was wanted on the project to manage the building once completed because the project’s developer, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, has a poor reputation with office towers. He said in addition to the 1.2 million square feet being leased by Conde Nast and the Chine Center, the government agency General Services Administration is in talks to lease 600,000 square feet. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Cushman & Wakefield CEO Glenn Rufrano, John Grotto of the Durst Organization, a rendering of 4 Times Square retail and Ariel Schuster of Robert K. Futterman & Associates

Major New York City developers and their brokers gathered in Las Vegas this week for
the retail trade show RECon and revealed additional details about significant Manhattan
retail locations.

On Monday, the Durst Organization unveiled renderings for the shopping portion of
4 Times Square, known as the Conde Nast Building. Later, a source said the signage
rights on the upper portion of the tower were being offered for $1 million per side of the
building.

That was just one of the many New York City retail locations highlighted in Las Vegas,
home of the International Council of Shopping Centers show held at the Las Vegas
Convention Center. [more]

From left: Bradley Mendelson, executive vice president of Cushman & Wakefield; Jeff Blau, president of Related Companies; Amira Yunis, executive vice president of Newmark and Jason Pruger, Executive Managing Director at Newmark

New York retail brokers and principals are making late appointments and boarding flights over the next few days in preparation to attend the world’s largest retail real estate show in Las Vegas.

Most of the city’s real estate professionals who focus on leasing and sales of store spaces will be at the International Council of Shopping Centers global convention known as RECon, from Sunday to next Wednesday, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The attendee list is a Who’s Who of New York City retail, from landlords like Vornado Realty Trust, Crown Retail Services and Forest City Enterprises to brokerages like Cushman & Wakefield, CB Richard Ellis and Northwest Atlantic. [more]

Two thousand clear prismatic glass panels designed by architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an elegant way of disguising the 185-foot tall concrete base of 1 World Trade Center, have proved difficult to manufacture at the scale necessary for the building, according to the New York Times.

Trials have resulted in brittle glass prone to shattering, leaving the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to look for new ideas. With the structure now rising to the 65th floor, it’s back to the drawing board.
[more]