From left: Wharton Properties' Jeff Sutton, Thor Equities' Joe Sitt, Cushman's Joanne Podell and Newmark's Jeffrey Roseman

The city’s top retail landlords and brokers are making final tweaks to their appointment schedule and ironing out which parties and dinners they will attend, just two days before the official start of the world’s largest retail trade show, the International Council of Shopping Centers’ RECon in Las Vegas. The conference website shows major real estate players plan to attend, such as Jeff Sutton, president of Wharton Properties; Joseph Sitt, CEO of Thor Equities; Michael Fascitelli, CEO of Vornado Realty Trust; and Glenn Rufrano, CEO of Cushman & Wakefield. [more]

Christopher Owles, a principal at Sinvin Real Estate, which did more Soho deals in the past year than any other firm (credit: Chris Martin)

From the May issue: While Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue and Times Square still hold the mantle for the city’s most expensive retail rents, brokers are headed downtown because that’s where the deals are. Indeed, the ever-popular Soho saw more retail leasing activity in the last year than any other neighborhood in Manhattan — by a long shot, according to an analysis by The Real Deal. The rankings not only looked at which of firms did the most business, but who dominated in a few of the city’s most active retail areas Soho, Upper Madison Avenue and the Lower East Side. [more]

From left: Newmark Knight Frank’s Jeffrey Roseman and 23 Wall Street

Cushman & Wakefield has lofty expectations for the three-story, 150,000-square-foot retail space it was retained to market in July at the intersection of Wall and Broad streets, the former headquarters of JP Morgan.
According to the New York Times, the building is currently owned by China Sonangol, but was built in 1914 by J.Pierpont Morgan with pricy pink Knoxville marble and a three-story bank vault, composed of nickel steel, armor, concrete and cast steel and a 52-ton door — unusual features that have brought attention from potential retailers looking to enter the growing retail and residential scene in post-Sept. 11 Lower Manhattan. [more]

[Updated at 12.30 p.m. on July 6, 2011 with comments from JSR Capital] Cushman & Wakefield has been retained by JSR Capital to find retail tenants for the old J.P. Morgan & Co. building at 23 Wall Street (J.P. Morgan & Co. became JPMorgan Chase in 2000), The Real Deal has learned. The building was purchased for $150 million in 2008 by China Sonangol. The team is marketing 178,000 square feet of space, including square footage in two adjacent buildings, 35 Wall Street and 15 Broad Street, both on a corner across the street from the New York Stock Exchange.
“It is a great place for a department store,” Joanne Podell, an executive vice president at Cushman who is marketing the space with Matthew Seigel, told Crain’s. She said she intends to reach out to Bloomingdale’s to see the store might want to create an annex in the space. [more]

From left: Joanne Podell, 521 Fifth Avenue and 1515 Broadway

After an overall strong second quarter, Manhattan’s prime shopping corridors showed mixed results last quarter with rents falling or remaining flat and vacancy rates climbing in more than half the districts tracked, a new rep [more]

William Friedland, vice president with Friedland Properties, and the UWS neighborhood that’s been the subject of rent disagreements, according to tenants

An office and retail property owner has been drawing ire from tenants on the Upper West Side for allegedly refusing to budge on rents and, they say, effectively forcing tenants out.

Friedland Properties, which has maintained a famously influential grasp on the Manhattan retail scene while maintaining top-dollar rents, has failed to renegotiate rents with tenants on a handful of blocks along Broadway, at least between 76th and 78th streets, some tenants there say.

Lisette, a shopkeeper who declined to provide her last name, said she had to shut down her salon, Curl Up & Dye, this past Christmas, after Friedland refused to adjust her rent, which she declined to disclose.

“[Friedland] has almost a whole block closed down because [they] won’t negotiate rent,” she said. [more]

1775 Broadway, where Kohl’s was reportedly looking to open its first Manhattan site (source: PropertyShark)

From the December issue: This holiday shopping season, the biggest sale in Manhattan just might be for flagship space. As 2009 draws to a close, the anemic pace of major retail leasing — the five major Manhattan retail submarkets tracked by Cushman & Wakefield scored just one deal over 10,000 square feet this year, compared to 11 across the same five submarkets in 2008 — has started picking up. Following a deal by furniture retailer Raymour & Flanagan for 30,000 square feet in August, brokers say tenants are finally looking around, after almost zero activity in the first half of the year. Bradley Mendelson, an executive director of Cushman & Wakefield, told The Real Deal he had a signed commitment last month from a tenant for 16,500 square feet of corner and second-floor space at 666 Fifth Avenue, perhaps the most prominent of a slew of major flagship vacancies across Manhattan.  More

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The month of June is the time when nearly every department and
specialty store offers markdowns on the prices of merchandise. Brooks
Brothers, Saks Fifth Avenue, Thomas Pink, Bergdorf Goodman,
Bloomingdales and Lord & Taylor are offering discounts of as much as
50 percent off. With major bankruptcies in national and local
retailers, rents have dropped and continue to drop in selected markets
in New York City. Nevertheless, retailers are continuing to sign leases
for retail locations.

Joanne Podell, a broker at Cushman & Wakefield, said “despite
weaker retail sales, both national and local retailers continue to seek
opportunities in New York City. With lower asking rents by landlords,
there are tenants who in the past have not considered operating in New
York [that] are visiting this market.” [more]