Steven Durels, SL Green's leasing director, overlooking Columbus Circle last month

From the January issue: The announcement early last month that advertising giant Young & Rubicam had signed for nearly 340,000 square feet of office space at 3 Columbus Circle, the former Newsweek Building, was a much-needed boost for the closely watched tower.

The 26-story, 768,565-square-foot tower was, of course, famously at the center of a battle in 2010 between developer Joseph Moinian and the Related Companies’ Stephen Ross. After Moinian defaulted, Ross attempted to wrest control of the building from him by buying the note and having his partner file to foreclose. However, powerhouse landlord SL Green Realty stepped in as Moinian’s savior and paid off the mortgage to squelch the foreclosure. Moinian and SL Green, which is headed by Marc Holliday, successfully finished a $175 million renovation — which included doubling the size of the lobby and cladding the exterior in glass — in the early fall. [more]

From top left: SL Green President Andrew Mathias, Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan, vice chairmen of CBRE; at right: 10 East 53rd Street

SL Green Realty agreed to purchase the HarperCollins Building from Hines Interests for $252.5 million, the firm announced in a press release yesterday. An unnamed partner joined SL Green in the acquisition of the 390,000-square-foot office tower at 10 East 53rd Street, between Madison and Fifth avenues, and will hold a 55 percent stake in the property.

Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan, vice chairmen of CBRE Group, represented Hines in the transaction, which earlier reports estimated would be worth $242 million. Hines purchased the property for $58.3 million in 1993. [more]

From left: Mark Weiss, vice chairman of Newmark Knight Frank, 1290 Sixth Avenue and 14 East 103rd Street (credit: PropertyShark)Buoyed by an aging population, new government initiatives and, in some cases, the struggling economy, health care industry real estate activity in the city has doubled over the last year, according to the New York Times.

This year there have been 42 new leases and renewals totaling more than 1.2 million square feet, according to Cushman & Wakefield, compared to 25 transactions and 550,700 square feet in 2010, and 16 deals for 176,311 square feet in 2009.

Many of these deals, including ColumbiaDoctors’ 25-year lease for 120,000 square feet at 1290 Sixth Avenue, with rights of first offer for additional space, were spurred by an expected increase in demand stemming from President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the Times said. [more]

SL Green Realty has secured an $86 million senior mortgage loan for Landmark Square, an 826,000-square-foot mixed-use property in Stamford, Conn., Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman, which served as SL Green’s advisor on the deal, said today.

The five-year fixed-rate financing was provided by AIG Asset Management on behalf of a wholly owned life insurance subsidiary of American International Group, Cushman said.

Landmark Square sits on a 7.16-acre campus in the heart of Stamford’s Central Business District, and is comprised of seven buildings, including a nine-screen movie theater. — Katherine Clarke [more]

From the December issue: Now that the light bulbs have been changed and the solar power panels have been harnessed, real estate firms in New York are gearing up for Sustainability 2.0.

In fact, just about every big New York firm has some sort of sustainability department or point person: Jones Lang LaSalle, Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE Group, Vornado, Silverstein Properties, the Durst Organization, Malkin Holdings, the Related Companies and SL Green, to name just a few.

And there’s good reason for that. Gone are the days of merely hanging out a sustainability shingle that touts a building owner for being concerned about the environment.

In recent years, investors have started paying closer attention to how green an asset is before deciding whether to pump their own greenbacks into the property. [more]

From left: SL Green CEO Marc Holliday, 280 Park Avenue (building photo source: PropertyShark), and Vornado Chairman Steven Roth

Vornado Realty Trust and SL Green Realty each has its own large management team charged with day-to-day operations of its portfolio of assets. But the Wall Street Journal reported that when the two firms teamed to take control of 280 Park Avenue, they made the unusual move of hiring an outside firm, CBRE Group, to manage the Midtown office tower, rather than pick between one of its own divisions.

The move to hire CBRE quelled concerns over how the two huge real estate firms would work together on a single asset. Though the Journal said leases at the building do still take longer to close, and the companies reportedly disagreed over which architect to hire for the $100 million renovation of the building, SL Green executives said the partnership has worked well. [more]

From left: Mary Ann Tighe of CBRE, Jimmy Kuhn of Newmark and 3 Columbus CircleAdvertising behemoth the Young & Rubicam Group will move into 340,000 square feet at SL Green’s 3 Columbus Circle, in a commercial condominium purchase and lease, the New York Times reported. The move marks the last major advertising agency to defect from Madison Avenue, the street that is synonymous with the industry as a whole.

Young & Rubicam took a condo interest in 214,372 square feet on floors three through eight, and signed a 20-year lease for 124,760 square feet on floors 9, 10, 18 and 19 at the 26-story tower. Three Columbus Circle, also known as 1775 Broadway, occupies the entire block between Eighth Avenue and Broadway at 59th Street. The deal includes naming rights for the building.
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From left: SL Green President Andrew Mathias, 180 Maiden Lane, 280 Park Avenue and 3 Columbus Circle

SL Green Realty, the city’s largest landlord, has suddenly put a halt to its acquisition binge, Crain’s reported, and has turned its focus to filling the space it already owns.

Since the end of 2009 the firm has had a hand in many of the large office tower trades in Manhattan, bringing its portfolio to 34 towers and about 25.5 million square feet. SL Green even dabbled more heavily in retail properties and, for the first time, residential properties. Earlier this year, it assembled 49,000 square feet of retail space in Times Square with Jeff Sutton, and acquired an eight-building portfolio including 724 Fifth Avenue with Stonehenge Partners. Comments

From left: LPC Chairman Robert Tierney and the Brooklyn Municipal building in the Skyscraper Historic DistrictUnder Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairman Robert Tierney has anointed more historic districts than any other administration has, but Crain’s noted that his zeal is beginning to meet some resistance.

Tierney has designated 27 such districts in his eight years, with a particular focus on the outer boroughs as previous chairs were accused of focusing too exclusively on Manhattan. But the development community and the property owners in those areas have criticized the LPC because the designations mean more expenses for them. [more]

From the November issue: Three autumns ago, the collapse of Lehman Brothers knocked the wind out of New York’s real estate industry. Home sales flattened. Prices plunged. And, as layoffs mounted, office buildings emptied out. While there have been some spurts of activity, the industry has not gotten back to the highs of the boom. In fact, as the unemployment rate still hovers at an uncomfortably high level, and Wall Street (a once-reliable real estate engine) reports losses, it seems that a complete recovery might be years away.

All the same, there are signs of comebacks — whether they are from developers who once defaulted on mega-loans and seemed like pariahs, or stock prices that have bounced back from the doldrums at some public real estate companies. There are also geographic stretches of the city that had been pocked with empty retail spaces and empty condo buildings, but are now filling up with stores and residents. There are even some bankers who had been caught up in the subprime mess who are now back on the lending scene in a big way. [more]