From left: Mort Zuckerman, Susan Breitenbach, Aby Rosen and Billy Macklowe
From Apollo Global Management head Leon Black to Boston Properties boss Mort Zuckerman, the New York City real estate industry is a critical component to the East End scene. In fact, no fewer than 14 of the 100 most powerful people to descend upon the Hamptons this summer, as compiled by Hamptons magazine, are members of the industry. [more]
From left: Related Chairman Stephen Ross, Patricia Harris, first deputy mayor, and EDC President Seth Pinsky
Power is becoming more diluted in New York City, according to the New York Times, but at least three real estate players possess some of what’s left. Related Companies Chairman Stephen Ross, Patricia Harris, first deputy mayor, and Economic Development Corp. President Seth Pinsky, were all named among the city’s 21 power brokers. Though traditional centers of influence have given way to the unfiltered voice of the internet, money is the last remaining vestige of the old order of power, as demonstrated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s near unmatched influence from City Hall. [more]
From left: Stephen Schwarzman, Richard LeFrak, Sam Zell, Leonard Stern, Stephen Ross
Blackstone President Stephen Schwarzman, Richard LeFrak, Equity International Chairman Sam Zell and Related Companies Chairman Stephen Ross were just some of the big players in New York City real estate to make Forbes’ list of the world’s 1,226 billionaires released yesterday.
But none can match the wealth of the man who has the final say on whether many of their ambitious city projects ultimately get built: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. [more]
In the last three months of 2011, New York City real estate executives gave more than six times as much to Republican political committees as Democratic groups, a review of federal election documents released yesterday shows.
Republican backers, including Vornado Realty Trust’s Steven Roth and Related Companies’ Stephen Ross, donated a total of $280,000 in the fourth quarter of the year to federal campaign committees, while Democrats contributed $43,300. An additional 10 donors gave $36,000 to political groups that back candidates in both parties (see partial list above and full list after the jump). [more]
Related Companies Chairman Stephen Ross Related Companies Chairman Stephen Ross appeared on CNBC today to explain his support for Mitt Romney in the upcoming presidential election (see video after the jump), most recently exhibited by a fundraiser he threw for the candidate two weeks ago in Florida. [more]
Related has purchased a portion of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Events, Business Week reported. The pair will partner on future ventures, the first being Related’s Hudson Yards.
Meyer, of Shake Shack fame, sees it as an opportunity to extend his brand to stadiums and other properties that his products don’t currently reach, and Related gets the cachet that Meyer’s popular chains bring. [more]
From the December issue: The holiday season is upon us, and New York’s society scenesters are busy with glittering galas and luncheons. Real estate moguls are no strangers to these events, and clusters of the industry’s biggest players can be seen at almost every party.
“People from the real estate world really do make a splash,” said Amanda Gordon, the social columnist for Bloomberg News. “The business is all about relationships, so they thrive at events where they can develop relationships that may bear fruit later, or celebrate those [relationships] that have worked out really well for them.” [more]
From the December issue: Not everyone has the stomach for a lawsuit — taking an otherwise private disagreement into the public realm and submitting it to the cool evaluation of the court.
But sometimes situations are untenable, and parties consider judicial intervention the only recourse. The resulting lawsuits can have a broad impact, reaching beyond the businesses involved to encompass the industry as a whole.
Consider the condominium contract dispute that could affect the way New York City developers handle purchase agreements for new condos. Or the suit between residential brokers whose failed alliance could become fodder for a jury trial. Or a federal agency’s offensive against a slew of major banks over mortgage-backed securities. [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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The Related Companies reimagined the design of the first phase of its Hudson Yards project this past summer, the Wall Street Journal reported, after Chairman Stephen Ross became disenchanted with the original renderings.
“I could tell that Stephen wasn’t in love with it,” Jay Cross, who oversees the West Side project for Related, told the Journal. “He felt he wanted the buildings to be more dramatic. And we found that the marketplace was looking for bigger buildings.”
The initial design, by William Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates architecture firm, featured three strictly rectangular steel office towers, the shortest in the middle. [more]
