Vornado’s Steven Roth, 280 Park and Sl Green’s Marc Holliday

Two 280 Park Avenue tenants — which were formerly in smaller, temporary spaces inside the 1.2 million-square-foot building — have inked deals that more than double their footprints, GlobeSt. reported. Asset management firm Blue Mountain Capital and consulting firm Promontory Financial Group now each have a 49,541-square-foot floor. [more]

Wendy Silverstein

From the March issue: The New York City real estate community took notice when news broke in late January about MaryAnne Gilmartin’s expected promotion to CEO of Forest City Ratner. While women — including the Corcoran Group’s Pamela Liebman, Douglas Elliman’s Dottie Herman, Eastern Consolidated’s Daun Paris and CBRE Group’s Mary Ann Tighe — hold key leadership positions in the city’s residential and commercial brokerage worlds, New York still has very few female developers or development firm heads. [more] 

Mary Ann Tighe and 550 Madison Avenue

Sony is hunting for a slightly smaller home now that Joseph Chetrit has plunked down $1.1 billion to buy its headquarters at 550 Madison Avenue, the New York Post reported.

The Japan-based entertainment giant has hired CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe and partner, Gregory Tosko, to lock down 550,000 square feet of space; its Madison Avenue headquarters is 850,000 square feet. [more]

From left: Mary Ann Tighe, David Levinson and 222 Broadway

Conde Nast is already expanding its downtown footprint before making the move to 1 World Trade Center. The publisher is now in negotiations to lease 80,000 square feet at the L&L Holding Company-owned 222 Broadway, located between Fulton and Ann Streets, in a 10-year-plus deal, Crain’s reported. [more]

Rob Speyer

Tishman Speyer President and co-CEO Rob Speyer has been appointed the next chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York. He will succeed CBRE Group Tri-State CEO Mary Ann Tighe beginning in January 2013, the organization announced today.

Speyer is the third consecutive generation of his family to hold REBNY’s top post. His father, Jerry Speyer, was chairman from 1986 to 1988 and his grandfather, Robert Tishman, possessed the title the role from 1972 to 1975. It marks the first time in the organization’s 117-year history that a third succeeding generation served as chair and, at 43 years old, Rob will be the youngest REBNY chairman ever. [more]

From left: Mary Ann Tighe, Gary Trock and Amira Yunis

CBRE Group landed assignments at one of the city’s most visible retail spaces and with one of its best-known office tenants. The New York Post reported that the brokerage’s retail team of Gary Trock and Amira Yunis was brought in to help the Durst Organization find a tenant for the 42,550-square-foot retail space at 4 Times Square. The landlord’s in-house leasing team nearly leased the space to Express, but the clothing retailer backed out of the deal to take what it considered a “more visible” location at SL Green and Jeff Sutton’s 1552 Broadway. [more]

Deputy Mayor Robert Steel

The Department of City Planning will launch a new initiative July 2 to speed the pre-certification process for projects that require land use review, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel announced today at an Association for a Better New York event.

Called Business Process Reform, or BluePRint, the new program will allow City Planning to review applications up to 50 percent faster than it does today, expediting applicants’ progress prior to the formal public review stage, known as Uniform Land Use Review Process, which takes a maximum of seven months. [more]

From left: REBNY President Steve Spinola, Tishman Speyer CEO Rob Speyer, Partnership for New York City President Kathryn Wylde and CBRE's Mary Ann Tighe

An advocacy group largely supported by the city’s real estate industry raised more than $12 million for Governor Andrew Cuomo, and $17 million overall, in 2011, its first full year of operations. A review of the Committee to Save New York’s finances conducted by the New York Times found more than two-thirds of the $17 million to have come from donors giving $250,000 or more, and three donors combined to give $6.25 million. By donating to the advocacy group, which has funded television and radio ads in support of Cuomo, these wealthy contributors can bypass the $60,800 state limit on direct donations to candidates. [more]

From left: SL Green CEO Marc Holliday, SL Green President Andrew Mathias, Extell President Gary Barnett and Governor Andrew Cuomo

The leaders of the city’s largest office landlord, SL Green, ranked at the top of a list of the most powerful people in New York City real estate compiled by the New York Observer. The ranking was based on “access and influence,” or the ability to influence the outcome of potential projects and access people who can help push an agenda forward. [more]

From left: Midtown Manhattan and Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of tri-state region for CBRE

Manhattan office leasing finished 2011 with gradual but steady improvement in asking rents, according to data released today by CBRE.

The exception is Midtown South, where the “glow of Google,” as Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of the tri-state region for CBRE, called it, pushed 2011 absorption to 2.19 million square feet — the highest for that market since 1997. In Midtown South, the overall availability rate fell to 8.8 percent in December, down slightly from November, the largest monthly drop since 2005, according to the figures presented by CBRE at its fourth-quarter media breakfast this morning.  [more]