The Crosby Street mechanics garage, which sits vacant (credit: Google Street View)

The owners of the BP gas station at the corner of Crosby and East Houston streets in Soho are looking for an upscale retail tenant to fill the space of their vacant garage located immediately behind the station, DNAinfo reported. LargaVista Companies, a real estate firm that specializes in developing underutilized or environmentallyimpacted properties, owns the 2,200-square-foot garage that was operational as a mechanics garage until February. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Faith Hope Consolo, chair of the retail division at Prudential Douglas Elliman, 382 West Broadway (credit: PropertyShark) and Joseph Aquino, vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman

Eighty-five year-old spa line Erno Laszlo is being relaunched and will open its first new spa in decades at 382 West Broadway in Soho.

The New York Post reported the company, headed by British entrepreneur Charles Denton and his RBS Equity Finance, inked a 128-month netlease for the entire 10,000-square-foot, two-story building between Broome and Spring streets in Soho, for about $1.5 million per year.

The new spa is expected to open next year in the building, which is owned by Kamran Hakim, who is said to own $1 billion worth of city real estate, and Henry Hay, a lead investor in Centaur Properties. [more]

The same retail market dynamics that helped push galleries and boutiques from Soho to other neighborhoods like Chelsea are now luring them back to their original home. According to the Wall Street Journal, lower rents along West Broadway have made it appealing to the types of shops that once called Broadway, Spring and Prince streets home.

A wave of galleries and boutiques have moved onto the street in recent months, thanks to rents that sit at just $200 per square foot, compared to the $400 per foot landlords on the street were charging three years ago. It’s also far less than the $500 per-square-foot landlords of retail spaces on Broadway, Prince and Spring streets are commanding. [more]

Soho and Tribeca were the most expensive New York City neighborhoods in the second quarter of 2011, but Dumbo was a surprising fourth entry on the top 10 list, according to PropertyShark.com. Dumbo was ahead of many other Manhattan neighborhoods such as the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, the West Village and Chelsea, with a median sale price of $1.075 million. That price increased 9 percent from the median sales price in the second quarter of 2010, which was $990,000. Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill was also on the list at number 10, with a median sales price of $801,000. Soho was tops at $2.147 million, a 26 percent increase over its 2010 second-quarter price of $1.7 million.
— Miranda Neubauer [more]

From left: “Men in Black III” star Will Smith, 38 Greene Street and David Zar, president of Zar Properties (building photo source: PropertyShark)

“Men in Black III” has rented a 9,000-square-foot loft in Soho for “quadruple” the normal rent to film an Andy Warhol-themed party scene for the upcoming film, the New York Post reported. The asking rent for a seven-year lease of the second floor of 38 Greene Street, which features 20 wrap-around windows, was $43 per square foot, according to building owner David Zar, who leased the space himself. He’ll split the income with Logan Media, a production firm that had signed on to lease the space, and will move in once “Men in Black III” wraps the scene. The movie, which stars Will Smith, Alice Eve and Josh Brolin, has rented out several other spaces in the area. [Post] [more]

The West Village’s 10014 placed fifth on Forbes’ annual list of America’s most expensive zip codes based on home prices, down from third place last year, with a median of $3.8 million. The Upper East Side’s 10065 came in at number seven, with a median home price of $3.7 million. Soho’s 10012 ranked in the top 10 this year, coming in at number 9, moving up from 18th place last year, with the median home price rising 22 percent to $3.2 million. Last year’s most expensive zip code, 07620 in Alpine, N.J, dropped to fourth place as the median home price there fell 8 percent to $3.8 million. [Forbes]

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From the April issue: There are still plenty of unsold new construction condos in New York City, especially in areas like Midtown, the Financial District and Williamsburg. But brokers say that months of busy sales activity (combined with some sellers taking their units off the market) is creating a shortage of inventory in some hot spots. Indeed, Miller Samuel’s fourth-quarter market report found that Manhattan inventory was down 18 percent from the previous quarter and almost 25 percent over the fourth quarter of 2008. In some neighborhoods, buyers are increasingly frustrated because they can’t find the type of apartment — often resale condos or prewar co-ops — they want. As a result, the competition for those apartments, when they do come on the market, can make the downturn seem like a distant memory. This month, The Real Deal asked brokers to identify the types of Manhattan apartments facing the worst shortages. [more]

While early sales at the Trump Soho hotel-condo project had investors optimistic, the 46-story building, which is expected to open April 9, has seen activity grind to a near-halt, according to the Wall Street Journal. With roughly a third of the building’s 391 units in contract, industry insiders are saying that the Soho’s so-so performance is representative of larger problems in the condo-hotel market. Many attribute the nationwide slowdown to a lack of available credit, while other experts are quick to point to the lackluster hotel industry, in which there is little enthusiasm for new projects. Of course, to ask New York Magazine, which recently released a scalding review of the building, the Trump Soho’s problem is that it’s just not cool enough for that neighborhood. A “cornucopia of walnut paneling and aubergine calfskin settees tries to attenuate the suspicion that this building doesn’t really want to be here,” the magazine’s reviewer, Justin Davidson, said. “It’s tall, but it lacks its namesake’s swagger.” [WSJ] and [NYMag]

1775 Broadway, where Kohl’s was reportedly looking to open its first Manhattan site (source: PropertyShark)

From the December issue: This holiday shopping season, the biggest sale in Manhattan just might be for flagship space. As 2009 draws to a close, the anemic pace of major retail leasing — the five major Manhattan retail submarkets tracked by Cushman & Wakefield scored just one deal over 10,000 square feet this year, compared to 11 across the same five submarkets in 2008 — has started picking up. Following a deal by furniture retailer Raymour & Flanagan for 30,000 square feet in August, brokers say tenants are finally looking around, after almost zero activity in the first half of the year. Bradley Mendelson, an executive director of Cushman & Wakefield, told The Real Deal he had a signed commitment last month from a tenant for 16,500 square feet of corner and second-floor space at 666 Fifth Avenue, perhaps the most prominent of a slew of major flagship vacancies across Manhattan.  More

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While year-over-year rental prices have continued to lag, figures month-over-month have remained relatively stable, according to the November monthly Manhattan rental market report released today by TDG/The Real Estate Group of NY (see the full report after the jump).

Rents dropped just .03 percent this November, compared to the month before. This figure is cause for some optimism, according to the report, because a more dramatic seasonal decline is typically seen during the month.

Daniel Baum, CEO of TDG/TREGNY, said that November’s strong showing was unexpected.

“We were actually somewhat surprised to see that November [prices] were [so stable],” Baum said. He attributed the unseasonally strong numbers to a delay in spring Wall Street hirings. Many Manhattan employers have actually begun taking on new hires this fall, according to Baum, which has created an uptick in demand. [more]