Gregory Kraut, formerly of CB Richard Ellis, and 100 Church Street

Canadian commercial property firm Avison Young continued its American expansion kick with its first hire in Manhattan, tapping a mid-level CB Richard Ellis leasing broker, Gregory Kraut, to start the difficult task of building a New York City office.

Kraut, who had been at CBRE for six years focusing on representing tenants, was most recently a first vice president working closely with David Hollander, a company senior vice president. Thirty-five-year-old Kraut was hired this month and will be a principal at the new firm.

The Real Deal reported in June that Avison Young, a private, independent firm headed by CEO Mark Rose was looking to open an office in Manhattan. Young brokers have been in high demand recently. Last week Eric Anton and Ronald Solarz, both in their 40s, left Eastern Consolidated for real estate investment firm Brookfield Financial, and earlier this month Oklahoma-based net lease brokerage Stan Johnson opened an office in Manhattan with former Massey Knakal agent Jason Maier. [more]

The economic uncertainty has had a significant impact on tenants’ expectations
in New York, slowing down the leasing market dramatically compared to
the beginning of the year, Michael Colacino, president of New York City-based Studley,
told GlobeStreet.com in an interview. The stock market and the
leasing market have become more interdependent, he explained. Because
corporations are acting more rapidly, anticipating rather than
responding to activity, there is greater and greater volatility.
“Confusion about the overall economy has resulted in a dramatic
slowdown in the activity going on out there,” he said. “If you look at
the statistics — the vacancy data — we had been decreasing the vacant
space almost from the beginning of the year until the middle of the
summer and now it’s essentially flattened out.” [more]

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From the August issue: After a slow July, in which it brokered just 70,162 square feet of office space, Cushman & Wakefield returned to the top of office tenant representation by square footage leased in July. Much of Cushman’s more than 1.2-million square feet leased came from Nomura’s 900,000-square-foot lease in Worldwide Plaza, which closed in June, and Morgan Stanley’s 200,000-square-foot lease at One Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn. Rounding out the top three office tenant representatives in the city from mid-June to mid-July were Studley and CB Richard Ellis. Click here to see the complete Deal Sheet summary. Comments

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New York City trails only Dallas/Forth Worth and Washington, D.C. in its recovery rate for office-using employment, according to a Studley office and space data report released yesterday. The city has a 49.9 percent recovery rate compared to Dallas/Fort Worth’s 67.9 percent and Washington, D.C.’s 60.5 percent, the report states. The 49.9 percent rate indicates that the city has regained its position as one of the top performing economies in the U.S over the last several quarters, the report notes. But nevertheless, optimism is waning due to the uncertainty hanging over the economy in the wake of the continued decline in home prices, slower economic growth and weak employment numbers. – Miranda Neubauer [more]

A 20,000-square-foot corner at 400 Park Avenue South at 28th Street, which can support a 420,000-square-foot project, is going on the market via Studley. The site was assembled by developers A & R Kalimian, who were granted approval from the New York City Department of Planning for a “daring” design by French architect Christian de Portzamparc and Handel Architects. It was a favorite project of City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, according to the New York Post.

After clearing most of the site, the developers have now opted to sell. [more]

Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding is looking to unload a 49 percent stake in the landmark Seagram Building at more than $2,000 per square foot. According to the Post, the record price per square foot for an office building was set at $1,585 in 2007 with the sale of 450 Park Avenue, and while prices have rebounded somewhat since the real estate crash, such a price is untested in today’s market. “If you want to test the strength of the market, it’s certainly the building with which to do it,” said Woody Heller, head of capital transactions group at Studley, which is not marketing the building. [more]

Not many investment sales brokers have worked both sides of the owner/broker divide, and fewer still make a switch and return back again. Eric Negrin, who last month was hired by commercial advisory firm Studley as a corporate managing director, has. Negrin, 46, spoke to The Real Deal about how the two sides view one another, why he made the switch, and why the grass often looks greener on the other side. After working with top sales broker Darcy Stacom for a total of 11 years first at Cushman & Wakefield and then at CB Richard Ellis, Negrin left the broker side of the industry in January 2010. In May that year he began working at Midtown-based office landlord Paramount Group, as the co-head of its acquisitions team for the firm that owns about 12 million square feet of Class A buildings in Manhattan, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Then in March 2011, he moved back to the brokerage side, taking the job with Studley. Click here to read the Q & A. [more]

From left: Steve Coutts, 499 Park Avenue (source: PropertyShark), 450 Park Avenue (source: PropertyShark), 1114 Sixth Avenue

Downtown landlords who inked major leases in Class A buildings last year made
practically no money on those deals once basic expenses were subtracted, a
recent report from commercial advisory firm Studley shows.
Office building owners of Class A towers earned an average of just $0.53 per
square foot on the approximately 15 large leases inked in 2010, once taxes,
operating expenses, electricity and concessions were accounted for.
That is down from the peak of $28.93 per square foot in 2007, and it was the
lowest landlord effective rent recorded since Studley began conducting the
survey in 1995. In it, they review the lease figures from direct, full-floor lease
deals in Class A buildings that have a term of at least 10 years. The survey
looked at deals in buildings such as 88 Pine Street, 7 World Trade Center and 77
Water Street, brokered by a variety of firms. [more]

Law firm Winston & Strawn has inked a deal to renew and expand its New York City offices at 200 Park Avenue, Tishman Speyer’s MetLife Building. According to the Post, the 280,000-square-foot lease is likely the second-largest for a law firm this year, behind Proskauer Rose’s 400,000-square-foot lease at 11 Times Square. Winston & Strawn, whose clients include Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Ernst & Young, has been located in the building since the mid-1990s, and this deal represents one of several expansions for the firm since then. Comments

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Source: Studley

The volume of square feet leased in Manhattan fell for the first time since the beginning of 2009, as tenants pulled back from historically high levels of deal making, yet the amount in the third quarter remained above average, a new report from commercial firm Studley shows. Large deals such as the renewal by advertising group BBDO Worldwide at 1285 Sixth Avenue and the new lease by German financial services company Allianz Global Investors at 1633 Broadway kept the activity relatively strong. Yet total leasing, including both relocations and renewals, totaled 8 million square feet, a 16 percent drop from the 9.6 million square feet in the second quarter of 2010, Studley reported. That was the first decline for Manhattan in a year and a half. [more]