Knickerbocker Hotel

The city’s annual list of liens for sale is now out, the New York Post reported, and while the Knickerbocker Hotel, a commercial condominium building undergoing renovation, owes $44,000 in unpaid water charges, the city actually owes money to Vornado Realty Trust, because the real estate investment trust overpaid at some of its properties last year.

The Post said building owners could land on the list for unpaid taxes or for unpaid water and sewer charges, emergency repairs or due to clerical error.  [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 the December issue: Now that the light bulbs have been changed and the solar power panels have been harnessed, real estate firms in New York are gearing up for Sustainability 2.0.

In fact, just about every big New York firm has some sort of sustainability department or point person: Jones Lang LaSalle, Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE Group, Vornado, Silverstein Properties, the Durst Organization, Malkin Holdings, the Related Companies and SL Green, to name just a few.

And there’s good reason for that. Gone are the days of merely hanging out a sustainability shingle that touts a building owner for being concerned about the environment.

In recent years, investors have started paying closer attention to how green an asset is before deciding whether to pump their own greenbacks into the property. [more]

Retail conglomerate Limited Brands has inked a deal for almost 100,000 square feet of office space at 1740 Broadway, at 56th Street, the New York Observer reported.

The company, which owns retailers such as Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works, has signed for floors 14 through 17 in a 10-year lease, engineered to coincide with the expiration of their other space in the Vornado-owned building, where they currently lease approximately another 400,000 square feet.

Sources told the Observer that the rent was in the $60s per square foot. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Steve Elghanayan, 40 Thompson Street, 387 West Broadway, 25 West 14th Street and 386 West Broadway

Steve Elghanayan, cousin of the Elghanayans that operate TF Cornerstone and Rockrose Development, is about to enter contract to purchase a four-building portfolio from Vornado Realty Trust for about $80 million, Real Estate Weekly reported.

The portfolio is comprised of 386 and 387 West Broadway, 40 Thompson Street and 25 West 14th Street. Vornado tried to unload a 25,000-square-foot retail condominium at 201 East 66th Street, but reneged because the Gap is about to vacate that space, which lowered the offering price. [more]

The World Monuments Fund has placed 510 Fifth Avenue on its biannual list of cultural heritage sites at risk, the New York Times reported. In reference to the controversy over proposed structural changes to the property by Vornado, the fund said that the case “raises questions about the legality of recent alterations and the capacity of the New York City Landmarks Commission to enforce protective regulations.”

The building is one of 67 sites worldwide included on the list. Other United States sites include the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, the Orange County Government Center in Goshen, N.Y and the Manitoga building in Garrison, N.Y. [more]

Source said Elizabeth Arden’s famed Red Door Spa is moving to the Ferragamo building at 655 Fifth Avenue

Elizabeth Arden’s famed Red Door Spa, located for 81 years at 689-691 Fifth
Avenue is moving two blocks south to a new location, at the Ferragamo building
at 655 Fifth Avenue, several sources in the retail real estate industry said.

The Elizabeth Arden spa, which occupies multiple levels at Vornado Realty
Trust’s landmarked building at 689-691 Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 54th Street,
will lease the eighth-floor space at Madison Capital’s 655 Fifth Avenue, at the
corner of 52nd Street, the sources said.

CoStar figures show the spa occupies the mezzanine, and floors seven through
10, for a total of 28,632 square feet. The ground floor is used for retail sales, while
the upper floors are for the spa services.
[more]

555 California Street in San Francisco
From the August issue: Vornado Realty Trust is close to securing a loan on its 52-story tower at 555 California Street, according to Bloomberg News. Lenders Pacific Life Insurance and MetLife are on track to win the assignment, beating out Wall Street banks competing to package the loan for sale. The 1.5 million-square-foot tower, home to Bank of America’s San Francisco headquarters, was built in 1969 and featured in the 1974 film “Towering Inferno,” starring Steve McQueen. It is the fifth-tallest building on the West Coast, according to data from Emporis. Banks have been competing for loans on top-tier buildings to bundle into bonds, Bloomberg said. “We’re going to focus on high-quality assets,” said Robert Merck, senior managing director and head of retail investments at MetLife. Click here to see the rest of the news from around the nation. Compiled by Katherine Clarke

One Park Avenue

From the July issue: “‘We are going to have a gun to our head,’” one real estate insider recalled top Vornado Realty Trust executive Glen Weiss saying, once the office giant decided to
go ahead with its acquisition of One Park Avenue.
In order to buy and recapitalize the building, Vornado had only weeks to nail down a large lease expansion with NYU Langone Medical Center, pay off mezzanine lenders, secure the first mortgage lender, and work out a deal with Murray Hill Properties and Cerberus Capital Management, the property’s owners.
It was sometime in January of this year, according to sources, that Vornado got serious about acquiring the building, which was underwater, as many Midtown properties were. One Park had been purchased at the peak of the market in 2007 by Murray Hill and Cerberus for $550 million. [more]

Jared Kushner and 666 Fifth Avenue

Developer Jared Kushner of Kushner Companies has come to a tentative deal to rescue his investment in 666 Fifth Avenue, which he bought for $1.8 billion in 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported. Kushner reached a possible agreement with LNR Property, a firm specializing in restructuring troubled debt and which oversees the mortgage, that would allow him to retain control of the tower by modifying the terms of the $1.2 billion mortgage tied to the office portion of the building.

As The Real Deal reported last month, Kushner is also turning to office giant Vornado Realty which may buy a 50 percent stake in the building. Vornado would pay an undefined “nine-figure” sum (meaning something between $100 million and $999 million), a source told The Real Deal at the time, for a piece of the building.  [more]