From left: 200 Lafayette Street, a rendering of 510 West 22nd Street and 100 Fifth Avenue (credit: PropertyShark)
It’s clear that technology firms have flocked to Midtown South to be close to their industry counterparts, but Crain’s noted that how such firms choose their specific space is not so clear. Thanks to the varying size, focus and age of tech firms it’s practically impossible to predict where they’ll choose space. [more]
While the commercial market has taken plenty of hits in the last few years, George Kaufman, chairman of commercial real estate property owner the Kaufman Organization, thinks the time is right to buy in New York City. Kaufman told the New York Times that the “markets will only get better” from where they are right now, and said that his company is “looking for opportunities wherever they come from.” Kaufman did not specify what particular properties he’s looking to buy, but said that now is “a good opportunity to grow.” [more]
519 Eighth Avenue, and Steven Kaufman and Barbara Raskob of the Kaufman Organization
A new spa is coming to 519 Eighth Avenue in the Garment District in early 2011. F.Y. Health & Beauty Spa, a company specializing in spa treatments in the New York area, signed a 10-year, 1,200 square-foot lease in a deal negotiated by the Kaufman Organization. Although terms of the lease were undisclosed, the asking rent for space in the 26-story, 349,000-square-foot building was in the low $60s per square foot. The new location, which will be called the Forever Young Health & Beauty Spa, will be the company’s second spa in the city. The company’s other location, Green Tea NYC at 141 West 35th Street, is also housed in a Kaufman building. TRD [more]
A joint venture of the Kaufman Organization and Invesco Real Estate have picked up the 270,000-square-foot office tower at 100 Fifth Avenue for $93.5 million, sources told the Wall Street Journal. The building, one block from Union Square, last changed hands for $152 million in 2008, when a unit of U.K. entrepreneur Paul Kemsley’s now-bankrupt Rock Joint Ventures bought it from Atlas Capital Group. [more]
Three non-profit organizations have signed full-floor leases at 147 West 24th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, according to landlord the Moinian Group. Meanwhile, the city began a $266 million remediation project on a Staten Island landfill today, and a Riverdale, N.J. shopping center welcomed Best Buy as a new tenant. Click here for more. TRD [more]
From the October issue: As commercial buildings change hands and landlords seek to squeeze more
profit out of their properties, full-service brokerage firms are
sharpening their knives for what insiders believe will be a feeding
frenzy for new office leasing opportunities. A building’s leasing agent — a firm such as CB Richard Ellis or
Cushman & Wakefield — represents the landlord in leasing
negotiations, and such contracts often are packaged with overall
building management. Unlike the residential new development condo market, where buildings
change marketing agencies frequently, most agents at commercial
buildings remain in place at a building for years with very little
turnover, records show.
