From left: Edward Minskoff, founder of Minskoff Equities, Paul Glickman, vice chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle, a rendering of 51 Astor Place and Robert Futterman

Minskoff Equities has tapped commercial real estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle to market the office space at 51 Astor Place, the company’s forthcoming 400,000-square-foot property, which is currently under construction near Cooper Union, company founder Edward Minskoff told The Real Deal today. Robert K. Futterman & Associates will be marketing the property’s retail component, he said.

“Jones Lang LaSalle had good market coverage for the tenants out there that we feel strongly about — stronger than other firms,” Minskoff said. “They represent a lot of the tech tenants and financial tenants that we feel are our most promising [prospects.]”

As for Futterman, Minskoff said he had a long and successful relationship with the brokerage, making it the obvious choice for the retail at the East Village building, which is slated to be completed by 2013. [more]

[Updated Aug. 11 at 4.00 p.m.] Queens-based real estate holding company Samson Management has completed its purchase of a 4,000-square-foot retail condominium at 11 West 51st Street, at the base of the Jewel hotel, for $17.5 million. Robert K. Futterman & Associates brokered the deal.

The seller of the property, near the entrance to Rockefeller Center between Fifth And Sixth avenues, was an LLC named 11 West 51st Street (see: correction appended). The condo is currently fully leased to Banco Popular.

RKF executive vice president Jeff Fishman, senior managing director Mark Kapnick, director Brian Segall, and analyst Jonathan Butwin were the exclusive agents for the seller. RKF also represented the buyer. – Katherine Clarke [more]

With more and more affluent young families opting to stay in the city rather than flee to the suburbs as was typical of previous generations, retailers are attempting to capitalize on New York City’s growing kids’ market. Real Estate Weekly took note of the tot-centric shops that have recently sprung up across the five boroughs, among them, Brooks Brothers’ first children’s store in Manhattan, located on Madison Avenue and 86th Street, and the New York Kids Club play center, which has opened five Manhattan locations over the past decade and is now looking to expand in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, kids’ clothing retailer Giggle, which already has stores in Soho and on the Upper East and Upper West sides, is hunting for new sites in Long Island City. [more]

From the South Florida website: New York-based retail brokerage Robert K. Futterman & Associates is branching out into South Florida. According to an announcement from the firm, RKF has opened its first Miami office at 1221 Brickell Avenue, to be headed by new hire Drew Schaul, a Coral Gables resident who is leaving his post as a senior associate at CB Richard Ellis. Shaul’s client list includes Brooks Brothers, Lens Crafters, GNC, Allen Edmonds and Kohler. “South Florida is reemerging,” said Robert Futterman, chairman and CEO of his eponymous firm. TRD [more]

Robert K. Futterman

From the April issue: Robert K. Futterman is the founder, chairman and CEO of Robert K. Futterman & Associates. With offices in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, northern New Jersey and San Francisco, the retail firm has been responsible for nearly $20 billion in real estate transactions since its founding in 1998, and is currently marketing retail space at 11 Times Square and 855 Sixth Avenue. In this month’s edition of The Closing, Futterman talks about dropping out of college, dating after divorce and what he lost after investing with Madoff. Click here to read the full interview. [more]

Karen Bellantoni, executive vice president at RKF, and 812 Washington StreetWomen’s clothing and accessories retailer Intermix recently secured a long-term lease for a 2,725-square-foot space at 812 Washington Street in the Meatpacking District. Robert K. Futterman & Associates arranged the deal, completing the first of three phases of leasing at the building, which has an alternate address of 95 Horatio Street and is located on the southwest corner at the intersection of Washington and Gansevoort streets. Scheduled to open in August 2011, the new store will have two entrances and will be at the base of the West Coast, a 389,376-square-foot, 159-unit rental building owned and managed by TF Cornerstone. TRD [more]

American Apparel, the colorful, trendy retailer with 20 Manhattan and Brooklyn stores, may be forced to close or sublease as many as one-third of those locations as the chain’s financial situation grows more dire. The California-based company, known for its rail-thin models clad in leggings and T-shirts, said Tuesday that it has more than $120 million in debt and may not have enough cash to last until the end of the year. While an American Apparel spokesperson told Crain’s that the company, which opened 13 New York City stores over the past five years, does not have current plans to close any of its Big Apple outposts, retail brokers were skeptical. “They did their big push in ’06, ’07 and ’08, when rents were highest,” said Ariel Shuster of Robert K. Futterman & Associates. “Their target audience was wider than most, so they went to these places where no other apparel tenant will go, like the Lower East Side.” American Apparel stores average around 3,000 square feet in the city, with some as large as 6,000 square feet, brokers said. [Crain's]

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The Harrison at 205 West 76th Street

Modell’s Sporting Goods is set to open this week on the Upper West Side after securing a 7,316-square-foot retail space on the ground floor of the Harrison, a 125-unit luxury condominium. The retail space, on Amsterdam Avenue between 76th and 77th streets, is located in the same building as an Equinox Gym and a Pure Yoga studio — a major selling point for the new retailer, according to Robert K. Futterman & Associates, which arranged the deal. It was not immediately clear what the rent is or how long the lease term was for; however, RKF did describe it as “long-term.” TRD

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Jeff Winick

From the May issue: Drugstore chain Duane Reade had a problem: A competitor was sniffing around a large space across the street from one of its best Midtown locations on Sixth Avenue near West 57th Street. Officials at the store enlisted its broker, Winick Realty Group, to take care of the situation.

Several months later, not only had the competitor disappeared, but Duane Reade had taken that site at 100 West 57th Street for itself.

That’s partly thanks to Winick Realty’s founder and CEO, Jeff Winick, who used back channels to help secure the site for the drugstore. Winick’s aggressive, take-no-prisoners style seems to win him accolades from clients but has created fierce enmity among his competition.

That style has been on full display for the last few weeks in a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, where two former Duane Reade executives are on trial for fraudulently pumping up earnings reports, partly through allegedly bogus real estate transactions involving Winick. [more]

The historic building where J. Pierpont Morgan built his banking empire, 23 Wall Street, once a contender for the new home of the New York Stock Exchange, now sits mostly empty after being acquired by a joint Angolan and Chinese venture, the Wall Street Journal reported. China Sonangol International Holding, which has ties both to Angola’s state oil company and reportedly, the Chinese intelligence community, acquired the property from a subsidiary of Lev Leviev’s Africa Israel Investments in late 2008 for $150 million. Africa Israel still manages the property, but its interior renovation is now considered one of the city’s stalled construction sites. [more]