From left: Michael Bloomberg and William Thompson

A camera lens analogy might help voters understand where Michael Bloomberg and William Thompson, who are New York’s main mayoral candidates, stand on key real estate issues ahead of tomorrow’s election. Bloomberg, the Republican incumbent, seems to favor a wide-angle approach, as his sweeping rezoning of a fifth of the city, or 8,400 blocks over eight years in office, would indicate. Focused on creating denser, more transit-oriented development, according to his PlaNYC, which was unveiled in 2007, the city has famously paved the way for homes to be built into once-industrial swaths of land, notably along the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. [more]

From left: the Soho Grand Hotel, Tribeca Grand hotel and the Maritime Hotel are possible credit risks

The troubled hotel climate in Manhattan prompted securitized loan servicing firms to characterize five mortgages for hotels, including the Soho Grand, as potential credit risks last month. The move doubles the number of Manhattan hotels on so-called watchlists to 11. The largest loan is for a $195 million note covering both the Soho Grand and Tribeca Grand, which are both owned by Hartz Mountain Industries. The loan was put on the watchlist in part because the hotels do not generate enough cash to cover the debt service payments, its servicer report says. [more]

Whoopi Goldberg’s 101 Wooster Street loft is on the market.

Whoopi Goldberg is trying to sell her Soho loft at 101 Wooster Street between Prince and Spring streets. She is asking $3.9 million for the two-bedroom co-op with two kitchens. The property has been on the market since June 30, Curbed reported, but Goldberg’s ownership has just been revealed. Meg Siegel of Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing. [more]

As large, national chains that can no longer afford high rents are
vacating prime retail space, smaller chains and restaurants are taking
advantage of lower rents and opening up in locations that were once
reserved for national retailers. As landlords look to rent space out to
smaller businesses that are seeking to expand or open a first location
and that have expendable cash, neighborhoods such as heavily trafficked
Soho, where rents last year surged beyond $125 per square foot, are now
offering rents below $100 per square foot. In Tribeca, where rents have
fallen an average of 30 percent, property owners are also offering
several incentives, such as months of free occupancy and early
termination clauses, which allow tenants to test certain locations.
David Barreto, a retail broker at Cast Iron Real Estate, said that in
today’s market, landlords care more about solid tenants than about
getting the highest profit. [more]

Rents on some of the city’s most prestigious shopping corridors have fallen by nearly a third over the last year, second-quarter retail data from Cushman & Wakefield shows. The sharpest drop was seen on Madison Avenue from 57th to 72nd streets, where average asking rents for first-floor retail fell 31 percent in the second quarter of the year to $745 per square foot from $1,091 per square foot, the firm’s data shows. At the same time, the availability rate grew from 13.4 percent to 15.47 percent. While the rents in most of the six shopping districts covered in the survey declined, one area, Times Square from Eighth Avenue to Broadway and 42nd to 49th streets, saw an increase in average rents from last year. [more]

Retailers previously priced out of Soho and the Upper East Side are taking advantage of falling rents and opening shops. Rents in the city fell an average of 11 percent between fall 2008 and spring 2009, Crain’s New York Business reported. Soho and Nolita are expected to see the biggest drop in rent this year — about 20 percent. Shoe store Camper recently signed a one-year lease on Madison Avenue at 59th Street for about $500 a foot, and thrift shop Housing Works just opened its ninth location in the city on Crosby Street in Soho. In addition, sneaker store Flight Club just leased its third Manhattan location on Lafayette Street for just $70 a foot. Brokers said the space could have fetched $200 a foot last year.

Judo Associates, the developer working on a $25 million project at the
corner of Canal and Greene streets in Soho, filed for bankruptcy
protection yesterday. Project architect Gene Kaufman, head of Gene
Kaufman Architects, said the firm had not worked on the Judo Associates
building, at 1 Greene Street, for a while. The development was slated
to include 54,000 square feet of residential space and 12,000 square
feet of ground-floor retail space. [more]

The Muppets Creature Shop is moving to 37-18 Northern Boulevard

Muppet makers at Jim Henson Co. are moving from their Soho office at
627 Broadway to a 12,000-square-foot space in Long Island City, at
37-18 Northern Boulevard. According to the broker, Jim DeLuca of Cushman
& Wakefield, incentives were key for the Creature Shop — which
designs and constructs all the Muppets like Kermit the Frog and Elmo –
and they were able to cut $6 a foot off the low-$20s a foot rent. In
the Soho space, the company’s renewal was proposed at $50 a square foot
last summer, but fell to $35 per square foot by the last offer. DeLuca
said the incentives, plus a freight elevator and a two-block stroll to
Kaufman Astoria Studios where Sesame Street is filmed, helped to seal
the seven-year Long Island City deal. [more]

Pop star Rihanna is close to signing a lease for a Soho penthouse on
Greene Street for $18,000 a month, according to the Post. The 2,300-square-foot penthouse was
originally listed for $22,000 a month. The home has three bedrooms,
three baths and a 500-square-foot terrace. The listing broker is
Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Lisa Maysonet. When 21-year-old Rihanna
was 16, she moved from her Barbados home to a mansion in Stamford, Conn.,
to live with record producer Evan Rogers and his wife. [more]

In keeping with seasonal trends, rental demand in Manhattan has
increased week-over-week since the beginning of April and since last
year, according to a May rental market report from the Real Estate
Group New York. Rental deals increased 33 percent this April compared
to April of 2008. But rents are still down significantly from their
2007 numbers, the report said. “While we have seen some owners realize the increase in demand and
begin to test the market, we are concerned that, as what happened last
summer, owners that are too aggressive to raise prices or slash
incentives will find themselves holding excess inventory going into the
fall,” Daniel Baum, COO of the Real Estate Group, said in the report. TRD [more]