From left: Stephen Siegel and Peter Turchin of CBRE and 218 West 18th Street
A joint venture between Atlas Capital Group and GreenOaks Real Estate Partners has purchased the defaulted note on a recently redeveloped 172,000-square-foot Chelsea office property, Crain’s reported, and has brought in a new leasing team to attract tenants to the building. [more]
The word on the street has always been that it’s a dog-eat-dog world in the city’s largest commercial brokerage firms, but brokers rarely reveal how the cutthroat maneuvering plays out.
But now, in a bombshell lawsuit filed this month, former CBRE Group broker Jon Zuckerman provides an inside account claiming he was forced to resign and give up his lucrative MetLife account while CBRE allegedly sought to consolidate control over his clients.
The suit only names the commercial property firm CBRE (under the name CB Richard Ellis Real Estate Services) and Zuckerman’s former partner, broker Keith Caggiano, and does not name MetLife or other CBRE executives. [more]
From the November issue: Commercial real estate brokers Faith Hope Consolo, Robert Knakal and Stephen Siegel are well-known personalities in New York City real estate. But thanks to bookstore shelves, Kindles and Amazon.com, they’ll soon be introduced to a much larger audience.
The three Manhattan brokers are featured in a new book, released in September by Domus Publishing, called “Brokers Who Dominate: 8 Traits of Top Producers.” For just $24.99, readers can now learn the secrets and stories of real estate professionals from across North America.
The book’s author is Rod Santomassimo, the founder and president of Massimo Group, a real estate coaching and consulting firm based in North Carolina. In an interview with The Real Deal, Santomassimo said he came up with the idea for the book after being constantly asked for the secret to success in the real estate world. Rather than try to summarize it himself, he asked 23 top commercial brokers to do it for him. [more]
Clockwise from top left: Gary Greenspan, executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield; CB Richard Ellis Chairman Stephen Siegel; 7 WTC; Peter Turchin, executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis and Michael Burgio, executive vice president of Cushman & Wakefield Seven World Trade Center is now fully leased, according to Silverstein Properties, which signed MSCI to a 20-year lease for the final 125,000 available square feet on floors 47 through 49. MSCI, which provides investment decision support tools, is moving its world headquarters to the 52-story tower from One Chase Plaza, and will consolidate its New York City operations in the space by the middle of next year.
Gary Greenspan and Michael Burgio, executive vice presidents at Cushman & Wakefield, represented MSCI, while an internal Silverstein Properties team together with CB Richard Ellis Chairman Stephen Siegel and executive vice president Peter Turchin, also of CBRE, negotiated the lease. – Adam Fusfeld
1 Comment
Yonkers-based AVR Realty has hired CB Richard Ellis with an eye towards putting 5 Times Square on the market, according to the Wall Street Journal. AVR bought the 1.1 million-square-foot building, which houses the U.S. headquarters of Ernst & Young, at the height of the market in 2007 for $1.28 billion.
Stephen Siegel, the firm’s global chairman, said that AVR will decide whether or not to market the building this fall. “It’s a fabulous asset, a magnificent building where there’s very limited risk,” he said.
If sold for a profit, the sale of 5 Times Square could be an indication that trophy commercial buildings are once again trading at record prices, the Journal said. “The sales market is picking up, and the question is: Does it keep going?” Siegel said.
AVR bought the building from Boston Properties for $1,162 per square foot in 2007, but CEO Allan Rose later admitted that it may have paid too much. “Everybody was in that irrational exuberance in those days and we probably paid too much for the building,” he said in a 2009 interview. [more]
Amid much back-slapping and cheerleading about the growth of Manhattan’s West Side at a panel yesterday that included developer Larry Silverstein, there was a hint that change could be afoot for the East Side of Midtown in the years to come. The millions of square feet of new office development being planned and built on the West Side in projects such as SJP Properties’ 11 Times Square and Related Companies’ Hudson Yards could lead owners of older Midtown office buildings — many of which are on the East Side — to convert them into residential apartments, following a pattern seen Downtown. [more]
The developer of the half-empty, 1.1 million-square-foot office tower at 11 Times Square has not signed a large lease since the law firm Proskauer Rose struck a deal last May, but it has found a few smaller tenants.
There are “a couple pre-builts with leases” pending, Stephen Siegel, chairman of global brokerage at CB Richard Ellis, said, referring to finished office space constructed by developers to attract companies. He did not identify the companies that took space.
Siegel and Steven Pozycki, CEO of 11 Times Square developer SJP Properties, were on hand last night for the ribbon-cutting led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg for Proskauer Rose opening its new office. Siegel made his comments in a private interview with The Real Deal. [more]
The New York Police Department has issued a secret request for proposals to environmental consulting firms to look at the effects of proposed security measures at the rebuilt World Trade Center. According to the Post, those involved with the project are worried that prospective tenants will be scared away, rather than comforted, by the move. Meanwhile, Larry Silverstein has reportedly tapped a CB Richard Ellis team led by Mary Ann Tighe and Stephen Siegel to market the already-rising 4 World Trade Center and the planned 3 World Trade Center and will announce the start of their leasing efforts next year. [more]
As it prepares to move to its new Midtown headquarters next month,
tenant representative advisory firm Studley is kicking tires at
approximately six companies to see which ones would make for a good
acquisition or joint venture partnership that could be worked out
before the end of the year, the firm’s top executives said. “We have about a half a dozen different companies we are looking at
right now about doing some sort of deal. Not all are acquisitions,”
company president Michael Colacino told The Real Deal in an exclusive interview last week. The company is looking to grow in the areas of brokerage, project
management and real estate investment banking and is eyeing companies
with a presence in New York City, Colacino said. In the interview with The Real Deal, Colacino and company
chairman and CEO Mitchell Steir discussed the various paths of growth
the firm is considering. The company is scheduled to move its
headquarters April 23 to 399 Park Avenue from 300 Park Avenue where it
will have the floor capacity to grow by approximately 60 percent from
the 136 professionals now. While they were not specific about their plans, some form of agreement is likely to be completed by the end of 2010. [more]
Stephen Siegel has purchased a $13.7 million seven-bedroom, 7.5-bath home with 200 feet of private beachfront in Sag Harbor, a spokesperson confirmed to Newsday. The sale of the 25 Shaw Road home, raised eyebrows last month when it ranked the highest selling one-family home in the town, the seller’s broker Tara Newman of Saunders & Associates told The Real Deal at the time. The buyer’s identity was not immediately available at the time. The property was on the market for two years before Siegel nabbed it from Charles Ray Langston, a Miami-based hedge fund manager. The property has a 50-foot heated swimming pool, theater and croquet court. Just last month Siegel purchased a Manhattan property, a $1.75 million two-bedroom apartment at the Fairchild condo at 55 Vestry Street. [more]
