11 Times Square and 200 West Street

Ten large Manhattan office tenants have committed to lowering their energy consumption by 30 percent over the next ten years, Crain’s reported. The pledge will affect the efficiency of about 17 million square feet of office space.

Though new developments like 11 Times Square and One Bryant Park have energy-saving systems, the owners have had difficulty reigning in tenants’ high consumption. [more]

From left: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to consider an appeal from Goldman Sachs in a class action lawsuit over investments in residential mortgage-backed securities, CNBC reported. The decision means that the Manhattan-based banking giant will have to continue to defend against the case. [more]

30 Hudson Street at center

Goldman Sachs has listed approximately 300,000 square feet of its Jersey City office space for sublease, Crain’s reported. The space comprises the top eight floors of the 40-story tower at 30 Hudson Street, the state’s largest skyscraper, which was constructed for the firm.

The 1.8-million-square-foot building has faced vacancy issues since opening early in the last decade due to bankers’ preference to work at the firm’s Lower Manhattan base. [more]

The pace of residential investment-related employment is predicted to pick up this year and in 2014 thanks to the housing recovery, CNBC reported, citing a Goldman Sachs report issued this week. Moreover, the increase in employment could mean the addition of 25,000 to 30,000 jobs monthly — a far cry from the 14,000 average monthly over the past year. These jobs include construction, manufacturing, real estate and wholesale trade, to name some examples. [more]

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will shell out a combined $557 million to settle the federal government’s allegations that the banks foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes, the Associated Press reported. The deal, announced today with the Federal Reserve, could compensate hundreds of thousands of homeowners who fell victim to “robo-signing,” when banks signed off on foreclosures without proper review. [more]

Sam Zell

Sam Zell’s Equity Residential said Monday that it would sell 27 properties to a joint venture including Goldman Sachs and Greystar Real Estate Partners, in a $1.5 billion deal, The News-Gazette of East Central Illinois reported. The two-part deal is set to close in this quarter. The deal includes roughly 8,000 apartment units, although none of the properties in the deal are in New York City. Under the agreement, the buyer has the option of excluding up to 8 percent of the value of the assets from the transaction, meaning it would only need to buy $1.38 billion of the assets. … [more]

From left: Preston Scott Cohen, principal of Preston Scott Cohen, Inc., and the pedestrian mall between Goldman Sachs and the Conrad New York Hotel

Only recently opened, the interstitial space between the backside of the Goldman Sachs Building at 200 West Street and the Conrad New York Hotel has become, unexpectedly, a vibrant hive of life, light and architectural interest. It was designed by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Preston Scott Cohen and initially opened two years ago, only to be sealed off again for further work.

The space in question, now chock a block with restaurants and purveyors of fine foods and wines, is an example of how architecture can be exemplary in its functionality without necessarily being good as architecture. Through the interplay of three plates that collide at sharp angles, a fairly elaborate glass and steel roof, computer-generated, glazes the curving and irregular space between the two buildings. [more]

The former head of credit and mortgage for Goldman Sachs is raising $500 million for a new fund that will buy foreclosed homes and attempt to rent them out. Donald Mullen, who left Goldman in January, has been marketing his Fundamental REO Access fund for about a month, sources told Reuters. Goldman is acting as placement agent for the fund, which Mullen has told potential investors could raise as much as $1 billion. [more]

Wall Street

As new types of businesses increasingly descend upon Wall Street, the old guard is beginning to depart. According to the New York Times, many financial institutions are moving middle-tier workers out of the Financial District to cheaper office space around the country.

With taxes, labor costs and real estate expenses so high in New York, more companies have begun “near-shoring” workers, or moving them outside of financial centers but keeping them in the U.S. While low-level jobs have already moved off-shore and top-tier traders and bankers will be in the city for the foreseeable future, accountants, human resource employees and legal support, to name a few, are being moved to places like North Carolina and Jacksonville, Fla. [more]

From left: Goldman headquarters, the Conrad hotel and Blue Smoke in Battery Park

Lower Manhattan’s transformation into a 24-hour neighborhood has been widely celebrated over the past year as the World Trade Center complex continues to rise, but according to the New York Times, Goldman Sachs is quietly responsible for much of the area’s growth.

Since opening its $2.1 billion 200 West Street headquarters in 2009, Goldman has played a key role in transforming the surrounding blocks to appeal to the 8,000 employees stationed at the headquarters and the legions of out-of-town employees that come in for business. [more]