The Real Deal New York

Last month The Real Deal spoke with real estate professionals to learn which projects and players will be on their radar in the year ahead. After dozens of interviews, hours of research and many editorial meetings, we winnowed down a list of real estate players and projects to watch in 2012. We weren’t looking for the city’s top brokers, or the biggest firms or the most successful developments. [more]

From left: Joe Sitt, 516 Fifth Avenue and 693 Fifth AvenueJoseph Sitt made his fortune thinking big — and not just in real estate. Back in the early 1990s, Sitt had trouble finding retail tenants for his urban properties. So he decided to open his own upscale apparel chain to serve the most promising urban retail sector he could find: plus-size women. [more]

For years, private equity firms have been lavished with huge sums of money by investors looking to own New York buildings. But recently, there have been fewer deals that those firms are finding attractive — ones that offer quick and bountiful yields. [more]

Huguette ClarkFor the past two decades, some 17,000 square feet of prime Fifth Avenue real estate have sat fully furnished, but empty. Once owned by eccentric heiress Huguette Clark, the three sprawling apartments at exclusive co-op 907 Fifth Avenue are now visited only by cleaning staff. [more]

18 Park in Jersey City
For developers, New Jersey’s Gold Coast — that swath of real estate hugging the Hudson River from Englewood Cliffs to Jersey City — presents a tale of two markets. [more]

Commercial real estate insiders in New York City can easily tick off Manhattan’s top power brokers in the office leasing world — and rank the biggest firms here to boot. But a haze obscures the actual amount of business each of these brokers — who collectively handle millions of square feet of office leasing every year — participates in. [more]

Tara Stacom Tara Stacom is a vice chairman at commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, the world’s largest privately held commercial real estate services firm. She’s been with the firm since 1981 and has handled more than 40 million square feet of commercial transactions. Her clients have included the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the Durst Organization, Morgan Stanley, SL Green Realty and Blackstone Real Estate Advisors. Earlier this year, Stacom represented the Port Authority in the historic Condé Nast deal at One World Trade Center, where she is the co-leasing agent along with Durst, an equity partner in the tower. Stacom is also on the ethics committee of the Real Estate Board of New York, and its commercial brokerage division’s board of directors. [more]

Stuart ElliottThere is an old adage that says, “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”
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The news that former Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill found a buyer for his 15 Central Park West penthouse — listed only three weeks earlier for $88 million — rocked the real estate community last month. [more]

Historically, institutional investors looking to park their cash in real estate have compared brick-and-mortar investments to Treasury notes before getting out their checkbooks.

The thinking went that investors concerned principally with safety would choose Treasurys, while those more interested in high returns would go with real estate. [more]

Charles Cohen
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that eye-catching marble panels line the elevators at 750 Lexington Avenue, the headquarters of Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation. [more]

The Manhattan office leasing market started 2011 with a bang of big leasing deals, driving down availability rates significantly. It’s not expected to perform quite as well in early 2012, but real estate professionals do view the year ahead in a positive light. Bruce Mosler, chairman of global brokerage at Cushman & Wakefield, said he does not expect much in the way of blockbuster deals in the first part of this year. That continues a trend that started in the second half of 2011 in which relatively smaller deals — less than 100,000 square feet — took a greater share of the market. [more]

January 2012 Funny Quotes [more]

Related CEO Stephen Ross and his West 30th Street lotHas the construction lending spigot, once jammed shut, turned to allow a slow stream of financing for New York City development projects? Industry insiders think so. Construction loans big and small are starting to add up in the city: $26 million for a condo project in Chelsea. Another $66 million for two Fashion District hotel developments. [more]

The announcement early last month that advertising giant Young & Rubicam had signed for nearly 340,000 square feet of office space at 3 Columbus Circle, the former Newsweek Building, was a much-needed boost for the closely watched tower. [more]

In 2008, 21-year-old Jared Seligman had sold some $40 million worth of real estate and gained fame for listing the Olsen twins’ Morton Square penthouse. And he wasn’t the only youngster flocking to residential brokerage during the mid-2000s. During the real estate boom, hordes of recent college grads entered real estate, hoping to cash in on the myriad six-figure deals taking place in Manhattan. [more]

Could today’s seductive conditions in the housing market — severely marked-down prices, record-low interest rates and hundreds of thousands of foreclosures waiting to be resold — be breeding new generations of the very practices that led to the crash? [more]

State panel probes Apple’s deal for Grand Central

Holiday shoppers weren’t the only ones eyeing Apple’s new megastore in Grand Central Terminal last month. A state assembly panel is investigating Apple’s 10-year lease with the Metropolitan Transit Authority to determine if the company got a “sweetheart” deal, the New York Post reported. Apple is expected to make some $100 million per year from its new store, the Post said, but its $60-per-square-foot rent is far less than that of its Grand Central neighbors. [more]

While the ailing economy has hindered some real estate firms in the last few years, it has spelled opportunity for others. Among the beneficiaries? Auditors, who say they’ve seen an increase in demand for their services, especially among real estate investors involved in joint ventures. [more]

The north side of Hester Street

When waves of immigrants washed across the Lower East Side a century ago, Hester Street between Essex and Ludlow streets was a kinetic — and occasionally run-down — jumble of storefronts. Shoppers flocked there to buy low-cost groceries, apparel and household goods from the pushcart vendors filling the streets. But Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia relocated the pushcarts to three new brick warehouses on Essex, one of which survives as a market today. [more]

Even in a year marked by continued economic malaise, buyers, sellers, landlords, lenders, builders, investors and even tourists broke records in New York in 2011. Below, a list of the all-time highs — and lows — reached in the last year. [more]

Manhattan’s commercial property will see less investment from Eurozone countries in 2012, as the continent continues to struggle with national deficits, austerity measures and a general existential crisis that last month’s summit failed to resolve, analysts say. The Manhattan activity from Eurozone countries (e.g., Spain, Germany, France and Italy) is expected to come mostly from investors, especially banks, selling off assets here to pay down debt or to conform to new European Union banking regulations. [more]

Ella Wendel1988: Cuomo goes after corruption in building

1962: Mormons buy land later used by Solow

1933: Thousands rejected as heirs to a fortune
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From left: Bruce Ratner and a rendering of Atlantic Yards’ first residential towerThe most remarkable thing — perhaps the only remarkable thing — about the recently released plans for a residential high-rise at Brooklyn’s much-debated Atlantic Yards site is not the design itself, but rather the manner in which the project will be built. [more]

In a key sign that the relationship between developers and organized labor has changed, the so-called New York Plan — a century-old agreement that required most contractors to use union labor — was allowed to expire Dec. 31. [more]

The debt crisis may be rocking Europe’s economy, but in a strange twist, it’s actually had something of a positive effect on New York City’s mortgage market — at least for now. In this month’s Q&A, The Real Deal talked to mortgage brokers and mortgage experts, who said that investors are pouring capital into U.S. Treasurys, which is, in turn, helping to keep mortgage rates low and attractive to buyers. [more]

A rendering of LG’s headquarters
New Jersey
LG approved for new HQ
Local officials voted last month to allow LG Electronics USA to build its new $300 million North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, the Bergen Record reported. LG had filed an application last year to replace the company’s current headquarters on Sylvan Avenue — and office space it rents in two other buildings — with a 493,167-square-foot complex. At eight stories, the facility’s central building will be the tallest in the borough and peak above the tree line of the Palisades, a fact that has drawn criticism from the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. [more]

The Reno skyline
Reno
In one of the largest land sales in U.S. history, a 1.28 million-acre Nevada parcel traded hands for $31 million last month, according to the CBRE Group, which represented the seller. The property stretches all the way from Reno to the border of Utah, and is approximately the size of Rhode Island. The buyer, Florida-based Fountain Investments, also purchased mineral rights for 800,000 acres of the parcel. The seller was Pico Holdings, a California-based holding company. Pico’s former chief geologist will join Fountain as an adviser to oversee mineral extraction on the land. “A land sale for more than $30 million is very significant today,” Steve Lehr, senior managing director with CBRE’s Land Services Group, said in a statement. [more]

Midtown West office building on the block

A 12-story loft office building at 335 West 35th Street is on the market with an asking price of $27 million. The 87,100-square-foot prewar property, located between Eighth and Ninth avenues, is 90 percent occupied. The majority of the tenants have below-market-rate leases, which may be terminated within a year. “Current zoning allows for multiple redevelopment strategies, including conversion to office or hotel use. Even a residential conversion could be implemented,” Eastern Consolidated’s Brian Ezratty said in a news release. Ezratty is handling the assignment with Gabriel Saffioti and Scott Ellard. [more]

LEASING UPDATE

Tribeca

83 Franklin
83 Franklin Street
Just two apartments remain at the 11-unit rental building, developed by Francis Moezinia and David Moussazadeh. The building’s homes range from 2,000 to 3,000 square feet, and have rented for $8,500 to $22,500 per month. Amenities include a common roof deck, gym, children’s playroom and bike room. Core is the agent. Contact: www.83franklin.com. [more]

41 Bond StreetGreenwich Village
$6.05 million
41 Bond Street
Three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath, 2,627 sf condo unit in a new development; apartment has private elevator, 11-foot ceilings and radiant heating; common charges $5,674 per month; taxes $599 per month; asking price $6.05 million; 22 days on the market. (Brokers: Dennis Mangone, Prudential Douglas Elliman; Tamir Shemesh, the Corcoran Group) [more]

A ribbon-cutting ceremony in Jersey CityOver the past three years, Rapid Realty has undergone an expansion befitting its name. Founder Anthony Lolli started franchising his Brooklyn-based rental brokerage in 2009, and the company has since mushroomed to several dozen franchise locations throughout New York City. [more]

From left: Gilad Schiowitz, Yale Klat and Justin Naoe

When Yale Klat and two partners launched the real estate brokerage Manhattan Residential Group last May, they decided to take it slow. For four months, the fledgling sales and rental firm didn’t recruit a single agent. Instead, the partners set up systems to support later growth. [more]

The GOP this month is gearing up for presidential caucuses in far-flung locales like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Here in New York, prominent real estate players are getting in on the action, stumping (and raising money) for their favorite candidates. [more]

Didn’t get that diamond necklace over the holidays? Real estate lovers, get out your wallets. New Jersey–based designer Pico is unveiling the new line from its “Little Architecture” collection — a series of necklaces, earrings and bracelets inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, Santiago Calatrava and others. The jewelry will debut at this month’s New York International Gift Fair at the Javits Center. [more]

Hollywood often portrays real estate brokers as a bit overzealous when it comes to pitching their properties. (Remember Annette Bening in “American Beauty”?) That stereotype provides plenty of comic fodder for a new production playing this month at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Chelsea: “This Is Not a Sketch Show: A Sketch Show.”
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January 2012 Bulletin Board