Broker Swain Weiner

From the May issue: Broker Swain Weiner, who worked for nine years in the Queens office of investment sales firm Massey Knakal Realty Services, left the company last month to launch a new brokerage in partnership with the nearly 60-year-old industrial sales firm Greiner-Maltz Real Estate.

Weiner resigned from Massey Knakal April 16 to start Greiner-Maltz Investment Properties as president and a partner. In contrast to Greiner-Maltz Real Estate, which specializes in selling industrial properties to users, the new company will focus on marketing retail, multifamily and mixed-use buildings to investors. [more]

From left: Michael DeCheser, director of sales at Massey Knakal Realty Services, and 100 Norfolk Street

A new condominium will rise on the Lower East Side, Crain’s reported. A building at 100 Norfolk Street, between Rivington and Delancey streets, was recently purchased for $8.8 million in cash, Michael DeCheser, director of sales at Massey Knakal Realty Services, told Crain’s. [more]

From left: Nicholas Bienstock, managing partner at Savanna, Jeffrey Lenobel, partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, President and CIO of L&L Holding Company Robert Lapidus, Bruce Mosler, chairman at Cushman & Wakefield and President and CEO of Brookfield Office Properties Mitch Rudin (credit: Marc Becker)Professionals from each corner of the commercial real estate world provided insights on the market and forecasts of what is to come yesterday at the 2012 Commercial Real Estate Investment Summit, presented by Massey Knakal Realty Services. The day-long conference held at the Association of the Bar, New York City, brought together brokers, owners, operators and financial professionals for an update on the state of real estate investing, as the industry continues its sometimes spotty recovery from the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holding Company (see slide show after the jump.) [more]

From left: 39 East 72nd Street, the Beresford building and 36 East 68th Street

A 27-foot-wide, six-story elevator building at 39 East 72nd Street, once the home of artist and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, has hit the market for $25 million, according to Massey Knakal Realty Services, the exclusive listing agent for the building. Meanwhile, Ronald Beck, the managing director and portfolio manager global hedge fund Oaktree Capital Management, has listed a penthouse at the Beresford for $22 million, and a single-family mega mansion at 36 East 68th Street has hit the market for $21 million. [more]

Bob Knakal and 183 Columbia Heights

An unidentified investor group has purchased the last remaining Jehovah’s Witnesses property that Massey Knakal Realty Services marketed for $6.6 million, Crain’s reported, 14 percent below the asking price. The group plans to turn the seven-story, 13-unit building, located at 183 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn Heights, into luxury rentals with leasing expected to begin this summer.

“Our clients were very pleased with the results,” Massey Knakal Chairman Bob Knakal told Crain’s, who marketed three Jehovah’s Witnesses properties, which was first reported last summer. [more]

New York City’s investment sales market remained in a holding pattern in the first quarter of 2012, with total transactions just slightly below the total for the last three months of 2011, figures from commercial firm Massey Knakal Realty Services released this morning, show. The firm reported there was $6.9 billion in sales in the city, down modestly from the $7 billion in sales in fourth-quarter 2012. However, the volume was a 76 percent increase from the first quarter of 2011, when there were $3.9 billion in sales, the company’s statistics show. [more]

From left: Massey Knakal Chairman Bob Knakal, Mark Lively, vice president of sales at Massey Knakal and 77 Commercial Street (credit: PropertyShark)

The Chetrit Group has acquired a residential development site in Greenpoint for $25 million, according to property records filed with the city today. The site, at 77 Commercial Street between Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street and near the Queens border, is currently home to a 95,000-square-foot warehouse. Thanks to the 2005 Brooklyn waterfront rezoning, the site is zoned for residential building and can be built to at least 271,499 square feet, according to Massey Knakal Realty Services, which listed the property on behalf of seller New York Community Bank. [more]

605 East 9th Street (credit: Gothamist)

Long-vacant P.S. 64, at 605 East 9th Street in the East Village, is back on the block, according to a report from EV Grieve.

Massey Knakal Realty Services has listed the landmarked school, which has sat vacant for 10 years according to the blog, offering it as a “152,000-rentable-square-foot property” for which the “highest and best use would be… to renovate the existing structure and convert it into a modern school or college dormitory.” [more]

From left: 134 Haven and Robert Shapiro, vice president at Massey Knakal

A $9.05 million sale of a multi-family building in the Washington Heights neighborhood has broken records for the area, according to a statement from Massey Knakal Realty Services today.

The 44,442-square-foot building, at 134 Haven Avenue, sold at “the highest price per unit ever paid for a strictly residential property with an elevator in Washington Heights,” according to Massey Knakal’s comparable sales data, the statement said. The six-story building is between 172nd and 173rd streets. [more]

The site on Arthur Kill Road

A big-box retailer has expressed interest in purchasing 57 acres of vacant land along Arthur Kill Road in the Charleston area of Staten Island., according to Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, which is marketing the site.

Knakal declined to specify the identity of the retailer but said the site’s size and its proximity to other large-scale shopping destinations, such as Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and Home Depot in the Bricktown Center, makes it a desirable prospective purchase. [more]