101 Market Street

CBRE Group has entered into talks with potential anchor tenants for a proposed one million-square-foot office tower that would be the commercial centerpiece of a radical redevelopment plan for downtown Newark, The Real Deal has learned.

Under the master plan being developed, the Richard Meier-designed SOMA Newark (SOMA stands for South of Market Street) project calls for 15 million square feet of development, including 8,000 residential units, 4.75 million square feet of commercial space and 550,000 square feet of retail, located across from the University Heights section of Newark. [more]

Seattle-based Sabey Data Center Properties has purchased a controlling interest in the former Verizon Tower at 375 Pearl Street for $120 million, according to Crain’s. The 32-story processing center, widely considered one of the city’s worst eyesores, had once been slated to undergo an office conversion under Taconic Investment Partners, which bought the property from Verizon for $173 million in 2007. Those conversion plans never materialized, as Taconic wound up defaulting on its mortgage payments, and M&T Bank took control of the mostly-empty building last year. Sabey has no intention of reviving the offices idea, instead opting to transform the 29 floors it’s taking over into a data processing center that can handle 40 megawatts of power — enough for 40,000 homes — by 2012. [more]

AT&T dominates in the city, with 61 stores citywide. Verizon has 32 and Sprint has 27.

From the August issue: The BlackBerry, iPhone and the Google Phone may be locked in a battle for customers, but at the moment they are all quiet on the New York City real estate front.

Mobile phone outlets of every brand, which gobbled up space all over the city, have retrenched.

Robin Abrams, executive vice president of the Lansco Corporation, explained that expansion leveled off because the big national phone providers such as Verizon, Sprint and AT&T “saturated the market.” Now they are ceding some market share to electronics retailers and discounters, said Van Baker, a research vice president for Gartner, an information and technology research and advisory firm.

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More than five hours after Linda Stein was believed to have been bludgeoned to death inside her Fifth Avenue apartment, her personal assistant left a message on the one-time punk rock manager turned celebrity real estate broker’s voice mail (listen to audio clip above). “Hey Linda, it’s Natavia,” began the message, which was played at the murder trial of the assistant, Natavia Lowery, in Manhattan Supreme Court. As the voice mail continued, Lowery, 28, told Stein that her ex-husband Seymour had called earlier that day then stated it was around 5:30 p.m. and that she was “leaving the office,” purportedly referring to the office of Prudential Douglas Elliman where Stein worked. “I hope that the [property] showing goes well,” Lowery’s brief message ended, “and I’ll see you tomorrow.” [more]

Prudential Douglas Elliman broker-to-the-stars Linda Stein was killed in her Fifth Avenue apartment by her personal assistant after a confrontation over work demands, law enforcement sources said. On October 30th, the assistant, Natavia Lowery, tried to negotiate with Stein about reducing the amount of extra work the broker gave her, sources said. Stein said she would pay for Lowery’s lunch, but Lowery insisted she could pay for it herself. Stein then allegedly asked how Lowery, an African-American, could afford lunch when people of her race lack money, Lowery said, according to law enforcement sources. Lowery took the yoga stick and attacked Stein with it, police said. [more]