The third annual GreenPearl New York event titled “Beyond Distress” was attended by over 450 real estate professionals. Witkoff Group Chairman Steve Witkoff delivered the keynote address, focusing on his acquisition of the International Toy Center at 1107 Broadway from Lehman Holdings. Mark Gorton, founder of Tower Research Capital, and the originator of Limewire — an early file-sharing program that resembled Napster — discussed the impact closing parts of Times Square to automobiles has had on businesses and the environment.

The event’s first panel, “Battlefield for New York,” included an impressive list of real estate experts, including Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail group at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Afterwards, Ryan Slack, the CEO of GreenPearlEvents, confided that attendance was down from the first year’s event — “The Distressed Real Estate Summit” — which attracted over 750 attendees. He speculated that the difference is probably due to the fact that a lot of those individuals are either out of the industry or have realized that the deals for forty cents on the dollar just never materialized. – Marc Becker [more]

Although developers Larry Silverstein and Harry Macklowe headlined the impressive list of speakers at Massey Knakal’s Commercial Real Estate Investment today, it was developer Sharif El-Gamal who jazzed up the audience at the second-floor auditorium in the McGraw-Hill Building in Midtown.

Speaking as part of a panel that included Brookfield Properties CEO Richard Clark, George Comfort & Sons CEO Peter Duncan and Himmel + Meringoff Properties’ managing partner Stephen Meningoff, El-Gamal talked about his company’s competitive advantages. [more]

From left: Kevin Davis, partner at Area Property Partners; Mason Sleeper, principal with the real estate investment firm Praedium Group; Tim Wang, vice president at ING Clarion

The percent of residential apartment dwellers in the city who are not paying their rent has as much as quadrupled since the market weakened last year, industry leaders on a panel discussing multi-family properties said today.

“Collections, especially in New York City, have become more of an issue,” said Mark Stern, senior vice president at Waterton Residential, a Chicago-based building owner and operator. His firm is planning on making acquisitions in New York City.

“[They are] going from the 5 percent range to now 10 or 20 percent in collections, which makes a difference on the bottom line,” he said.

Mason Sleeper, a principal with the real estate investment firm Praedium Group, said he has seen a similar distress in the market.

“You have your collection issue which is increasingly creeping up to becoming a little bit of a problem,” he said.

They were speaking on a panel that also included Kevin Davis, partner of Area Property Partners; Tim Wang, vice president at ING Clarion and Max Herzog, senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis. The panel, moderated by Mike Kelly, president of Caldera Asset Management, was part of a day-long forum covering multi-family real estate organized by GreenPearl. [more]