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]

One of Manhattan’s leading mid-market commercial brokers, Ivan Hakimian, is opening his own firm after six years in the industry, he told The Real Deal.

This week, Hakimian launched the investment sales company Hakimian Properties, to be known as HPNY. While it will handle the sale of all types of assets, in the past he has specialized in off-market sales of retail and residential multi-family properties.

The announcement comes two months after he brokered the $72 million sale of 1414 Sixth Avenue, at the corner of 58th Street, to Starwood Capital Group. [more]

A mostly-gutted, two-building structure at 133-137 East 73rd Street, at Lexington Avenue, is now on the market for $35 million and has the potential to be one of the city’s most luxurious private mansions. The 27,500-square-foot property has been used as medical offices and ground-floor retail space for the past 30 years, but it was once residential, and owner BLDG Management has received approval to bring the five-story, elevator building back to its roots. In addition to transforming the building into a private residence, BLDG also has permission to build a 2,500-square-foot duplex addition above it. The property, which has an alternate entrance at 1024 Lexington Avenue, first hit the market last year for $40 million before the latest price reduction. Ivan Hakimian of Itzhaki Properties has the listing. [Post, 4th item]

Paramount’s Paolo Zampolli (l) and Paul Massey of Massey Knakal

The Italian-born founder of model agency ID Model Management and a regular in the
Post’s Page Six column, Paolo Zampolli, filed suit in New York State
Supreme Court today claiming he was cheated out of more than $200,000
in commissions after he introduced a buyer for the property at 31 Bond
Street in Noho and was not listed as a broker on the sale. Zampolli, a licensed salesperson with Paramount Realty Group of
America, claims in the suit that he was the procuring broker that
brought his client, an Italian named Cristina Calori, to buy the
property at 31 Bond. The seller, a Japanese corporation called Heian
Bunka Center, which owns the six-story mixed-use building, was
represented by Massey Knakal Realty Services. Calori ended up going into contract on the property, with an asking
price of $8.5 million, but not listing Zampolli as the broker. The sale
is expected to close soon, the suit says. Zampolli, through Paramount, is suing Calori; her company Monster Real
Estate; Massy Knakal; and the Japanese firm Heian Bunka Center for a
total of $212,500, which represents half of a 5 percent commission, on
allegations including breach of contract and interfering with
contracts. Zampolli rejected the assessment by several brokers that he needed a
written contract with Calori — which he did not have — to prevail. “That is nonsense. [Brokers holding such a view] are amateurs. We will
have a judge rule on the legality of this case. That is why we went to
Supreme Court,” he said. [more]

From left, Nicholas Schorsch, CEO of American Realty Capital, and David Fick, managing director of Stifel Nicolaus

A handful of new “blank check” real estate investment trusts seeking to raise billions of dollars from investors in the public markets starting in early 2010 are targeting New York City properties, according to their recent filings. Six public REITs filed prospectuses with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the last two months to raise nearly $4 billion for the acquisition of different types of real estate in limited regions including New York. They are expected to begin the offerings in early 2010. What makes this batch of public REITs unusual from traditional public offerings, experts said, is that they are so-called “blank check” or “blind pool” entities, meaning the new company does not yet own any assets, but instead is seeking to raise capital based on the reputation of the managers and the offering plan. David Fick, managing director of equity research at St. Louis investment firm Stifel Nicolaus, estimated there were about 20 blind pool REITs nationally, which were evidence of a completely new trend. [more]