From top left: Broadway Partners CEO Scott Lawlor, Invesco CEO Martin Flanagan, and 280 Park Avenue

The value of New York City’s 25 largest commercial property sales increased 23 percent in 2011 to $12.27 billion and the median price per square-foot of an office building rose 18 percent to $696, according to Crain’s, but troubling signs lurked behind the impressive outlay.

Many of the largest deals of the year, including the $1.1 billion SL Green Realty and Vornado Realty Trust paid for 99 percent of 280 Park Avenue, were recapitalizations which bailed out troubled landlords. [more]

From left: HFZ Capital founder Ziel Feldman, Vornado Realty Trust Chairman Steven Roth and 11 East 68th Street (building credit: PropertyShark)

HFZ Capital Group joined Vornado Realty Trust in its previously reported acquisition of 11 East 68th Street, and will take control of the 41 residential units while Vornado presides over the 100-foot-long Madison Avenue retail space, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In September, Vornado entered into contract to buy the Upper East Side rental building for $170 million, a $21.8 million discount on the amount the sellers, ABRO management, paid for it in 2008. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Cassidy Turley New York Tri-State’s Peter Hennessy, 330 Madison Avenue and Frank Doyle of JLLFinancial firm Guggenheim Partners has agreed to lease 186,000 square feet at 330 Madison Avenue for a rent in the $70s per square foot, the New York Observer reported. Guggenheim will move into the space when the lease for its approximately 140,000 square feet at 135 East 57th Street expires in 2013.

Vornado Realty Trust is the landlord at the 850,000-square-foot Madison Avenue tower, between 42nd and 43rd streets, and is spending more than $100 million to upgrade the building and secure a LEED Silver certification. [more]

From left: SL Green CEO Marc Holliday, 280 Park Avenue (building photo source: PropertyShark), and Vornado Chairman Steven Roth

Vornado Realty Trust and SL Green Realty each has its own large management team charged with day-to-day operations of its portfolio of assets. But the Wall Street Journal reported that when the two firms teamed to take control of 280 Park Avenue, they made the unusual move of hiring an outside firm, CBRE Group, to manage the Midtown office tower, rather than pick between one of its own divisions.

The move to hire CBRE quelled concerns over how the two huge real estate firms would work together on a single asset. Though the Journal said leases at the building do still take longer to close, and the companies reportedly disagreed over which architect to hire for the $100 million renovation of the building, SL Green executives said the partnership has worked well. [more]

From left: Jared Kushner of Kushner Companies, Vornado’s Steven Roth and 666 Fifth Avenue

Jared Kushner’s Kushner Companies has completed a refinancing of its mammoth tower at 666 Fifth Avenue with Vornado Realty Trust, Bloomberg News reported. Vornado is injecting $80 million of equity into the project in return for a 49.5 percent stake in the tower, while Kushner will also contribute $30 million to the refinancing.

Under the agreement, the tower’s senior debt will be reduced to $1.1 billion from almost $1.22 billion, a source with knowledge of the deal told Bloomberg. The equity contributions will cover the costs of leasing the 30 percent of the building that’s currently vacant, the source said. [more]

From left: Vornado Chairman Steven Roth, a rendering of the 15 Penn Plaza skyscraper and Hotel PennsylvaniaVornado Realty Trust has put off constructing a massive skyscraper that would challenge the Empire State Building’s height at 15 Penn Plaza, sources told the New York Post, and might even pour millions into renovating the hotel that currently occupies the site.

With market rents still hovering below the rates necessary to make office development profitable and the financial firms that would make sensible anchors cutting operations instead of expanding, Vornado has decided to hold off on the development. [more]

From left: Stanley Chera, founder of Crown Acquisitions, Joseph Sitt, CEO of Thor Equities, and Mike
Pappagallo, COO of Kimco Realty

Although just a fraction of the size of the largest global retail convention held each year in Las Vegas by the International Council of Shopping Centers, the trade group’s conference taking place in New York City next week is considered the second most important in the country.

One advantage of its smaller size, insiders said, is that the New York show provides for greater concentration on closing deals.

“In Las Vegas, the annual convention has more pageantry,” Mike Pappagallo, COO for the New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based real estate investment trust, Kimco Realty, said. “At New York there is more good old-fashioned blocking and tackling and deal making.” [more]

A publicly-traded real estate investment trust, one-third owned by Vornado Realty Trust, has completed a $275 million refinancing of Rego Park II, a 600,000-square-foot retail complex in Central Queens, GlobeSt.com reported.

The seven-year loan will repay the existing loan on the property, which, as of Dec. 31, 2010, had a balance of $277 million for the $410 million retail development, GlobeSt.com said.

Tenants at the complex include Costco, Century 21 and Kohl’s. [GlobeSt]

From left: Tina Knowles with her daughter Beyonce, the interior of Tina’s former apartment and the exterior of One Beacon Court

Fashion designer Tina Knowles, the mother of pop singer Beyonce, is moving into her daughter’s apartment at One Beacon Court, an inside source told The Real Deal. Knowles, known for designing outfits for her daughter’s former pop group, Destiny’s Child, now heads up Miss Tina by Tina Knowles, a women’s clothing line sold at Walmart. As the New York Post recently reported, Knowles recently signed a contract to sell her Beacon Court condominium unit, at 151 East 58th Street between Third and Lexington avenues, for $5.6 million.

Beyonce owns an apartment on an upper floor of the 105-unit building, developed by Vornado Realty Trust and designed by architect Cesar Pelli, but does not live there, the source said. [more]

From left: Vornado Realty Trust Chairman Steven Roth, Patrick Foye, executive director of Port Authority, and 20 Times SquareVornado Realty Trust has abandoned its plan to build a 40-story tower atop the Port Authority Bus Terminal after its Chinese investment partner chose to invest the $600 million earmarked for the tower in another Midtown property, the New York Times reported.

Vornado had been in talks with Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to build the tower at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue since 1999. The tower would have been designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, and included a garden atop the existing four-story terminal. As part of the agreement, the developer was also on the hook for a $400 million renovation of the bus terminal that would have brought 18 new gates to the bus hub. [more]