Vornado Realty Trust is “nervously bullish” on the city’s commercial real estate market, Steven Roth, the REIT’s chairman, told CNBC’s Squawk Box today. Roth said that while he believes the market bottom has already passed, and transaction volume is “ticking up a great deal,” he is still keeping some office space in his portfolio off the market until rents recover. Meanwhile, Richard LeFrak of the LeFrak Organization noted that the commercial leasing landscape has morphed over the past decade to accommodate the growth of large hedge funds.

[more]

Richard LeFrak, president of the LeFrak Organization, appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box recently with Tom Flexner, global head of Citigroup Real Estate, to discuss opportunities in the commercial real estate market. LeFrak, who cited the billions of investment dollars on the market sidelines, asked Flexner how private capital can invest in real estate at a time when no one seems willing to take a loss on their distressed assets. “It’s really a function of distressed sellers rather than distressed assets,” Flexner said. “The number one way that private capital can get into the real estate sector is to lower their return requirements.”

From left: Richard LeFrak, Karen LeFrak, Michael Bronson, chief of roint replacement at Mount Sinai, Rick Friedberg, Francine LeFrak, Peter May, Evan Flatow, chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics at Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai Medical Center recently celebrated its new Joint Replacement Center at 5 East 98th Street, where construction was completed in the second week of December. The 5,000-square-foot space, which takes up half of the building’s seventh floor, was formerly occupied by the Department of Ophthalmology, now located in the Annenberg Pavilion at 1468 Madison Avenue. Also unveiled at last month’s reception was the new Samuel and Ethel LeFrak Center for Patient Education, housed within the joint replacement unit. The LeFrak family donated an undisclosed amount to create its eponymous center, complete with HDTV monitors to display post-surgical information and videos, and was on hand at the reception to celebrate the new space. TRD [more]

Richard Lefrak’s organization is a possible contender for Stuy Town

Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty were pilloried for aggressively pushing out tenants and running afoul of the city’s J-51 tax abatement rules. But some of the firms that are being mentioned as possible replacements as owners or managers at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village — such as developers LeFrak Organization and Rose Associates, and real estate firm Stonehenge Partners — come with their own skeletons in the closet. The New York City real estate world is bracing for a struggle among titans for management or ownership of the 11,200-unit housing complex on Manhattan’s East Side following the announcement  last month that the owners would cede control. Potential parties must negotiate with special servicer CWCapital Asset Management, the majority of which is owned by Canadian institutional fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. The special servicer represents the interests of the bondholders of the securitized loans on Stuyvesant Town. Other firms being bandied about as possible investors or investors are WL Ross & Co., Centerbridge Partners, Related Companies, WinnCompanies and Prudential Douglas Elliman, according to media reports. The thorny city tax abatement program known as J-51 that contributed to the forfeiture of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village has dogged one of the leading contenders for the site, LeFrak. [more]

Donald Trump and Stuyvesant Town

Now that Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village owners Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty are out of the picture, some of the city’s biggest real estate names are vying for a stake in the 110-building complex, including one Donald Trump. Tishman Speyer and BlackRock announced earlier this week that they would hand over the debt-ridden property to creditors after missing a $16.1 million mortgage payment earlier this month. Since then, “people have asked us if we would get involved in running it or buying it,” Trump told the Post. “We are looking at it right now very seriously.” Trump isn’t the only one. WinnCompanies, the Boston-based apartment manager, is looking to dip its feet into the New York City market by taking on the property manager role at Stuy Town, and earlier this week, a high-profile group including investor Wilbur Ross, real estate mogul Richard LeFrak and investment firm Centerbridge Partners said they were interested in taking ownership. Rose Associates, the Related Companies and Prudential Douglas Elliman are also reportedly interested in a management role. Whoever owns the property next could be responsible for the $200 million in rent overcharges left over from October’s rent-stabilization ruling against Tishman Speyer, said Alex Schmidt, the tenants’ attorney in that case. [more]

At CNBC’s recent “Billionaire Roundtable,” real estate bigwigs real estate bigwigs Sam Zell, chairman of Equity International, Wilbur
Ross, chairman and CEO of WL Ross & Co., and Richard LeFrak, president and chairman of the LeFrak Organization, weighed in on the outlook for commercial real estate. Zell appeared the most optimistic of the bunch, arguing that headlines projecting the impending collapse of the commercial real estate market have been greatly exaggerated. While Ross said he believes the fallout from Dubai‘s debt crisis wouldn’t be “the terrific contagion that some people had thought,” he insisted that commercial real estate will nonetheless be fighting an uphill battle for quite some time. “You’d be amazed how little office and retail space unemployed people need,” he said. “The biggest victims are going to be the regional banks.” Watch Part 2 of the video after the jump. [CNBC via Square Feet Blog] [more]

Richard LeFrak, president and chairman of the LeFrak Organization, and William Rudin, president of Rudin Management

Heads of two of the city’s leading real estate families said although the short-term commercial property landscape remains difficult, opportunities are fast approaching. Richard LeFrak, chairman and CEO of the LeFrak Organization, told an audience during a Real Estate Board of New York luncheon in Midtown this afternoon that signing a new lease with a tenant was similar to a famously difficult medical procedure. “It is like having a colonoscopy,” he said. “That is exactly what it is like.” He was joined on a panel by William Rudin, president of Rudin Management, and Jeffrey DeBoer, president of the national trade association, the Real Estate Roundtable, in a discussion moderated by Steven Liesman, senior economics reporter for CNBC. Rudin confirmed that striking lease deals was hard work, but there was more activity in the market. [more]

Richard LeFrak, president and chairman of the LeFrak Organization, Stuyvesant Town

Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty’s restructuring of their $3 billion in debt will depend greatly on the support of tenants and local politicians, according to Richard LeFrak, president and chairman of the LeFrak Organization. LeFrak, whose group owns upwards of 15,000 New York City apartments, a third of which operate under rent-regulation laws, told Bloomberg that a “grand negotiation or compromise” between the embattled Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village owners and the tenants would be essential for a stable loan restructuring. “This is such a behemoth, you can’t handle it without being part of some sort of cooperative effort,” LeFrak said.

Over a dozen so-called “Masters of Real Estate” said that they’re both cautious and determined to take advantage of the many bargain deals that abound, during the Observer’s conference on market troubles yesterday. Richard LeFrak, chairman of the LeFrak Organization, said that while he’s expecting the commercial market to make a strong showing in the coming months, he’s concerned that state regulators could stymie success. “The most sensitive thing is the politicians,” LeFrak said. “[Those] guys can screw up a two-car funeral if we let them.”

LeFrak Organization Chairman and Chief Executive Richard LaFrak sat down with the New York Times to discuss survival in a down market and integrity in a corrupt industry. He jokingly commented in his interview that his proudest accomplishment is that he has “done business in Northern New Jersey for 25 years and [hasn't] been carted away in handcuffs yet.” But, humor aside, LeFrak said that he sees the corruption in New Jersey as “pathetic.” He argued that a focus on fundamentals keeps his business strong, even in a recession. “I’m kind of a farmer — I start with dirt and make it grow — and that’s been a tradition for 100 years,” LeFrak said. “My sons will be the fourth generation, and yet we’re still applying the same fundamental ideas applied by our predecessors.”