From left: Silverstein Properties President Larry Silverstein and Jones Lang LaSalle Tri-State President Peter Riguardi

The slow pace of Manhattan leasing is “shocking,” Jones Lang LaSalle Tri-State President Peter Riguardi told the New York Post, as leasing activity through February was down 40 percent from the same two months in 2011.

Commercial landlords and real estate brokers alike are becoming frustrated with the lack of activity and the negative absorption since the final three months of 2011, the Post said. [more]

New Port Authority Chief Patrick Foye

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey should stay out of real estate development and stick to airports, ports, bridges and tunnels, Patrick Foye, the new executive director of the agency, suggested to the New York Times in a sit-down interview.

“When the World Trade Center nears completion there will be a peace dividend — in the sense that Port Authority has borrowed about $7 billion to put into the World Trade Center, and total spending is more than that,” he said. “As One World Trade Center is completed at the end of 2013, we’ll be able to stop investing at that level. That will enable us to return to our core mission — airports, ports, bridges and tunnels — not real estate development. Government is not good at real estate development.” [more]

3 WTC

Three World Trade Center is close to being topped off — 73 stories shorter than initially planned. Crain’s reported that if developer Larry Silverstein, president of Silverstein Properties, cannot find an office tenant for the planned 80-story tower by the end of the year, he’ll cap it off at seven stories and seek retail tenants to fill the structure.

After talks with UBS broke off Silverstein has not come close to finding a tenant, Crain’s said, but if one is found in time, Silverstein will resume construction as planned on 3 WTC with slight delays to the expected 2015 completion date. [more]

Construction at the World Trade Center site

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has been advancing money to DCM Erectors, the company that’s erecting the steel skeletons of two towers at the World Trade Center site and the agency’s $3.4 billion transportation hub, the Wall Street Journal reported, in an effort to keep the construction on track.

The agency has even been paying some of DCM’s subcontractors directly, the Journal said, since DCM, which has $700 million worth of steel contracts at the site, began to struggle financially as a result of the project’s complexity and unexpected extra costs. [more]

From left: 130 Liberty Street and 140-144 Washington Street (credit: PropertyShark.com)

The owner of two mid-sized Downtown hotels overlooking the World Trade Center reconstruction site claims the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank office tower and the placement of a large construction crane nearby have cost it at least $1 million in lost business, a new lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court says. The hotel owner, a company called Cedar & Washington Associates, filed suit against the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a joint city-state corporation, Dec. 27, court records show. The suit says the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank property at 130 Liberty Street across the street from the hotels, Club Quarters at 140 Washington Street and World Center Hotel at 144 Washington Street, as well as the placement of a crane on Washington Street for about two weeks starting in late September 2010, harmed business in part by noise and dust and “stigmatized the hotels as unsafe.” [more]

Airy, open-plan office spaces, once seen as difficult to rent, are commanding some of the highest office rents in Manhattan since the recession, the New York Times reported, some more than $100 a square foot. These spaces, with dramatic city views, can be found in Midtown towers like 499 Park Avenue and 250 West 55th Street, the Times said, as well as downtown at 1 and 3 World Trade Center, now under construction.

Also desirable for their floor plans are buildings like 51 Astor Place, 28-40 West 23rd Street and 30 Rockefeller Center, where investment company Lazard is redesigning its 430,000 square feet on the top floors.

“Constantly now, we see firms wanting to build dramatic space,” said Peter Turchin, an executive vice president at CBRE. [more]

After more than 50 years of investing almost entirely within the confines of New York City, Larry Silverstein has signed on to a $666 million venture to buy and develop properties in Poland, Bloomberg News reported.

The developer of new towers at the World Trade Center site has teamed up with Poland’s richest man, Jan Kulczyk, for the project. The duo made their joint purchase in August, buying an eight-story Warsaw office building, Bloomberg said, and is currently in talks to build several new towers in the Polish city.

Kulczyk has “done everything, but one thing he hasn’t done much of is real estate development,” Silverstein said. [more]

Plans for the 1,000-seat Joyce Theater and performing arts space at the World Trade Center site have stalled as the Bloomberg administration waits for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to name representatives to the Frank Gehry-designed arts center’s board of directors, the institution of which is necessary for $100 million in funding, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has consistently supported the center, has picked his appointees for the board, which must be formed by Dec. 31 for the project to remain eligible for Lower Manhattan Development Corporation funding. Cuomo has not named anyone so far, leading some to speculate that he is purposefully dragging his heels, trying to win the funds for other projects. [more]

Construction costs will likely delay the planned 2012 opening of the Sept. 11 museum at the World Trade Center, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Two months ago the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which owns the site, ceased to renew construction contracts for the $800 million project, slowing progress because it says the National September 11 Memorial & Museum foundation owes $156 million.

But the foundation believes it is owed more than $100 million because of delays. [more]

Renderings of the Fulton Street Transit Center (source: MTA)

Unlike its Grand Central Terminal, where the Metropolitan Transportation Authority directly leases space to tenants and has become known as something of a difficult landlord, the MTA will lease all the space in the forthcoming Fulton Street Transit Center to one company and let that firm manage it. According to the Wall Street Journal, the agency hopes to make it a shopping and dining destination.

Once complete in 2014, the three-story glass and steel structure at the corner of Fulton Street and Broadway will have 70,000 square feet of retail space. [more]