Business is getting better, John Livingston, president of the Tishman Construction, told the New York Times in a recent Q & A. “And some of the evidence of that is that some very significant projects in the last few months have restarted. One is called Revel, a large casino in Atlantic City. The other is the International Gem Tower in the Diamond District. They started a number of years ago; each stopped for about 18 months and started up again in the last six months.” [more]

The Department of Buildings has issued 1,342 summonses — worth about $2.1 million in fines — for illegally smoking at construction sites since September 2008, but there are still too many workers lighting up, the New York Post reported. The summonses were issued as part of a crackdown prompted by the deaths of two firefighters in an August 2007 blaze at the former Deutsche Bank building, which was sparked by a cigarette. About $900,000 has been collected, with the remaining $1.2 million in penalties still to be adjudicated. Tishman Construction had the most violations in each of the last two years. “We strictly enforce smoking regulations on all job sites and have terminated individuals who have been caught smoking,” said Tishman spokesperson John Gallagher. [Post]

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Construction workers at the topping out ceremony

Developer Related Companies and construction manager Tishman Construction celebrated the topping out of Manhattan’s largest current private project today, according to Related. The 60-story, mixed-use development at 440 West 42nd Street between Ninth and 10th avenues, an $800 million project, will contain 800 residential units — both rental and sales — of which 163 will be designated as affordable housing. The development will also house the Frank Gehry-designed Signature Center, an off-broadway theater, and a Yotel brand hotel. The building is pursuing a LEED-silver certification. TRD

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Tishman Speyer’s $316 million Gotham Center Tower in Long Island City topped out today, according to a press release from the developer. The 21-story mixed-use tower at Two Gotham Center, being erected on a city-owned site occupied by a municipal parking garage, will be home to Department of Health and Mental Hygiene headquarters, and will include 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 160 parking spaces. The tower is the first phase of the proposed 3.5 million-square-foot Gotham Center development. The building is slated for completion in early 2011, at which time DOH employees will being relocating from some of the agency’s 15 Manhattan locations. Gotham Center Tower will incorporate green building technology and is expected to achieve LEED certification for its interiors and core and shell. TRD

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, otherwise known as Calpers, is raising eyebrows for its investment in real estate developments across the country making the transition from rent-stabilization to market-rate, according to the Wall Street Journal. While Calpers took a major hit on its investment with the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complex, experts say the organization, which handles approximately $200 billion in California state retiree funds, has profited off of numerous similar developments, like the Riverton Houses. Calpers, for its part, says it’s taking a critical eye to its investment trend. “These historical investments were made under previous investment leaders,” Brad Pacheco, a Calpers spokesperson, said. “Nevertheless, our current investment staff has the issue under study.”

Tishman Speyer Realty and BlackRock Realty agreed with tenants to permit the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village lawsuit to proceed as a class action case, and also extended an interim agreement to lower rents until June, according to a joint statement from lawyers and the landlord. Under the agreement, tenants will continue to pay, until the end of June, the lower of either their existing rent or estimated rent-stabilized rents. Tenants will also be granted certain rights that exist under the city’s rent stabilization law, including rights to renew leases and family succession. After missing a $16.1 million interest payment, Tishman Speyer and BlackRock last month agreed to turn the 110-building complex over to creditors in a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. The companies bought the complex in 2006 for $5.4 billion. Tenants won a landmark lawsuit alleging the landlord illegally deregulated apartments at the complex, which received J-51 tax benefits from the city. [more]

Chart clarification: While CBRE data puts Durst’s portfolio at 7.2 million square feet, a Durst spokesperson later said that figure is actually 9 million.

Asking rents plunged for some of Midtown’s top landlords last year as they competed for the few tenants searching for space in a weak leasing market, but their reductions helped keep their vacancy rates below the market average, experts said. The family-owned Durst Organization dropped its asking rents to $60.82 per square foot in November 2009 from $113.15 per square foot in August 2008, near the pricing peak of the leasing market, according to the most recent data available on Midtown’s top 10 landlords from commercial services firm CB Richard Ellis. The Real Deal compared data from August 2008 to November 2009 for the top 10 landlords in Midtown ranked by square feet owned. The 46 percent decline was the steepest among Midtown’s top 10 landlords, who control 93 million square feet, or about 41 percent of the market. Landlord and tenant leasing broker Cynthia Wasserberger, a managing director at commercial firm Jones Lang LaSalle said the landlords cut prices to attract tenants and keep their buildings filled. “I think all the landlords got aggressive. They were pretty swift in their decision to respond to the market,” Wasserberger said. [more]

A Starrett subsidiary got a rude shock last month after the New York State Supreme Court ruled that it had improperly de-regulated rents at a stabilized South Bronx building at 1600 Sedgwick Avenue, Crain’s reported. The ruling against the landlord, Riverview Development, and subsequent injunction to halt the eviction of those tenants who refused to pay higher rates, was based in part on the precedent set in the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village case, which found that developer Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty had illegally deregulated rents there while taking government tax breaks. In the court filing, the judge cited the Stuy Town case as an influence, noting in this instance that “once defendants prepaid their mortgage it appears that they ceased to be subject to the regulations attendant to that mortgage… [while still] benefiting from the J-51 tax abatement program.”