Matt Leon, a young upstart at real estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank, is taking over as head of a leasing team that handles the Manhattan office portfolio of TF Cornerstone, the New York Observer reported, including Carnegie Hall Tower, 645 Madison Avenue and 387 Park Avenue South. Leon takes over leasing at the properties from his former mentor Billy Cohen, the Observer said, a top Newmark broker who is stepping down because of growing responsibilities tied to other agency assignments. He handles leasing at Malkin Properties’ assets like the Empire State Building. [NYO] [more]

Source: Studley

Manhattan office tenants leased up space at the fastest clip in five years during the first quarter of 2010 as they tried to lock in prices that many believed were at or near their lows in the current economic downturn, according to a report covering the quarter from commercial tenant advisory firm Studley. But overall asking rents declined and the availability rate rose sharply Downtown, the report says.
There was 8.9 million square feet of office space leased in the first quarter in Manhattan, the highest volume of leasing since the first quarter of 2005, when 9.8 million square feet was leased in the borough, the Studley report, set to be released later this month, shows. The volume was up from the fourth quarter when 8 million square feet were leased and was ahead of the quarterly average of 7.2 million square feet, Studley reported. The leasing volume figures reported by Studley are higher than those seen in other market reports because the firm includes all space leased in its figures — including renewals — while other firms such as CB Richard Ellis and Cushman & Wakefield count only newly-leased space. [more]

The volume of new relocation deals for large blocks of office space in Manhattan fell by 71 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 from the third quarter, as tenants chose to remain in their current locations instead of move, data from commercial real estate firm Studley, prepared for The Real Deal, show.

There was just 603,175 square feet of new space leased in large deals in the fourth quarter in Manhattan, down from 2 million in the third quarter, the firm’s figures indicate.

In fact, new leasing for large deals, of 50,000 square feet or more, was only slightly behind the 702,086 square feet leased in the second quarter, a period considered historically very weak, the data reveal.
Steven Coutts, senior vice president of research at Studley, said tenants were opting to stay to save money.

“Although there are some great deals out there to move, most don’t want to take the expense to take advantage of it,” Coutts said. “The majority of deals are renewals and downsizing.” [more]

Midtown leasing velocity beat its five-year average for the first time
in 18 months while the availability rate of office space improved slightly for only the
second time since late 2007, according to a Manhattan monthly leasing
report from commercial services firm CB Richard Ellis released today. There was 1.58 million square feet leased in Midtown in July, up from
1 million in June, the report said, besting its 60-month average of
1.32 million square feet. The increase in leasing was attributed in part to the continued decline in rents. “The fact that pricing is getting to be more and more palatable just
means that it takes the edge off… the amount of time that it might
take for landlords and tenants to come to an agreement,” Pamela Murphy,
senior vice president for research at CBRE’s tri-state region, said
during a conference call covering the report this afternoon. [more]