U.S. real estate investment trusts paid out a whopping $192.3 million to the top 20 highest-paid CEOs in the industry last year, for an average of $9.6 million per executive, according to SNL Financial. That’s up from $104.7 million, or $5.2 million per CEO, in 2009.

While it’s true that REITs did well last year, CEO compensation far outpaced their companies’ performance — across the REIT sector, shareholders saw a return of 28.9 percent; the top 20 highest-paid REIT CEOs saw an average 83.6 percent pay increase.

Marc Holliday, CEO of SL Green Realty Trust, took home $24.8 million last year, making him the highest-paid REIT executive in the country and marking a 117.6 percent increase over his compensation during the year prior. [more]

Mortimer Zuckerman, Mark Edelstein, 250 West 55th Street

[Updated May 25 at 11a.m.]

International law firm Morrison & Foerster has signed a 15-year lease to take 180,000 square feet, or seven floors, of space at 250 West 55th Street, Boston Properties’ planned $1.05 billion, one million-square-foot office building in Midtown, Boston Properties announced today. Construction on the 39-story building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, began in late 2007, but was suspended as a result of the recession in 2009, after the completion of excavation and foundations. It is slated to resume in the fall of this year and be completed by 2014.

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From left: Bradley Mendelson, executive vice president of Cushman & Wakefield; Jeff Blau, president of Related Companies; Amira Yunis, executive vice president of Newmark and Jason Pruger, Executive Managing Director at Newmark

New York retail brokers and principals are making late appointments and boarding flights over the next few days in preparation to attend the world’s largest retail real estate show in Las Vegas.

Most of the city’s real estate professionals who focus on leasing and sales of store spaces will be at the International Council of Shopping Centers global convention known as RECon, from Sunday to next Wednesday, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The attendee list is a Who’s Who of New York City retail, from landlords like Vornado Realty Trust, Crown Retail Services and Forest City Enterprises to brokerages like Cushman & Wakefield, CB Richard Ellis and Northwest Atlantic. [more]

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

SL Green Realty and Vornado Realty Trust’s recapitalization deal at 280 Park Avenue is official, and involved the acquisition of “a significant majority stake” in the 41-story property, according to Crain’s. In March, the two landlords combined their $400 million worth of debt positions in the 1.2 million-square-foot office building into a 50/50 joint venture after it was revealed that owner Broadway Partners was running short on reserves and had begun seeking a capital infusion. They’ll pour $150 million into luring new tenants to the increasingly vacant building, and sources have speculated that they will also put up additional funds for upgrades. [more]

Kuwaiti investment firm Fosterlane Management, the former owner of the Lipstick Building and 350 Park Avenue, is getting back into the New York City real estate game with the purchase of Hines Interests’ 750 Seventh Avenue for $485 million, or roughly $808 per square foot, the Post reported. Earlier this week, the Observer reported that the 600,000-square-foot tower near 49th Street tower was in contract to sell to an anonymous offshore investor. Hines purchased the 36-story tower, half of which is occupied by Morgan Stanley, for $150 million in 2000 through a partnership with General Motors. [more]

Vornado Realty Trust is quietly shopping around a small ground-floor space occupied by luxury skin care company Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Spa at 691 Fifth Avenue, where the company has been located for more than 70 years, several retail sources said.

New Jersey-based Vornado, which has owned the landmarked structure known as the Elizabeth Arden Building since 1998, is asking $3,000 per square foot for the 1,402-square-foot ground-floor location next to clothing retailer Zara, two of the sources said.

Roger Eulau, a senior director at commercial firm Lansco, who represented Uniqlo in one of the most expensive leasing deals ever in Manhattan at 666 Fifth Avenue, believed $3,000 per foot was a new peak. He had not been aware that Vornado was marketing the space. [more]

During the depths of the financial crisis, developers reconsidered and re-imagined their shelved projects, and now, construction is resuming on some of the city’s most anticipated towers, according to the New York Times. Brookfield Office Properties spent construction delays re-engineering a cheaper way to build a deck overlooking the rail yards as it prepares several towers for its 5.4-million-square-foot lot between Ninth and Dyer avenues and West 33rd and 31st streets. Pacolet Milliken Enterprises demolished an entire block along Sixth Avenue between 39th and 40th streets before the downturn, and has now completed the design for a 350,000-square-foot office building at the site. Comments

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From left: 3 Columbus Circle, 195 Broadway, 280 Park Avenue, 1166 Sixth Avenue

As investors flood the Manhattan commercial market and few buildings go up for sale, buyers are increasingly taking partial stakes in buildings. Crain’s cited RXR Realty’s purchase of 40 percent of 1166 Sixth Avenue, L&L Holdings finding an investor for part of 195 Broadway, SL Green Realty’s $138 million investment in 3 Columbus Circle and Vornado Realty Trust’s deal with SL Green for 280 Park Avenue. While the activity is a healthy sign for the market, it also requires multiple parties with millions of dollars at stake to work together on a single project. [more]

From left: Gary Barnett, 220 Central Park South and Steven Roth

Developers Steven Roth and Gary Barnett are set to face off at 220 Central Park South, a 1950s-era apartment building that Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust has been planning to demolish and replace with a 41-story, $400 million condominium tower for more than five years. But Barnett, president of the increasingly powerful Extell Development, is the leaseholder on the parking garage below, and so far he’s refusing to be bought out, according to the Wall Street Journal. In December, Vornado agreed to pay $40 million to buy out the remaining 26 rent-regulated tenants at the 124-unit building, which it acquired with the Clarett Group for $131 million in 2005. [more]

Manhattan’s two largest landlords are teaming up for the first time in a bid to take over 280 Park Avenue, the struggling Plaza District office property that’s seeking a capital infusion amid dwindling interest reserves. According to Crain’s, SL Green Realty and Vornado Realty Trust have combined their interests in the property’s two adjacent towers into a 50/50 joint venture that holds a total of $400 million in debt. The news comes one week after it was reported that owner Broadway Partners, which bought 280 Park Avenue with Investcorp for $1.2 billion at the height of the real estate boom, had hired Edgerock Realty Advisors to find new investors for the 1.2 million-square-foot property. [more]