A glance at today s Lower East Side skyline offers a strong impression — one of these buildings is not like the others. While the newly christened Hotel on Rivington, a 21-story glass tower, would be a gem in any neighborhood, it s an unlikely sparkler in an area comprised of tenement buildings and dive bars, far from Manhattan s main tourist-traffickedécorridors. Indeed, two major groups of travelers that carry the hotel trade business road… [more]
March 2005
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New York City s loft spaces may have been born of artistic necessity, but they ve evolved into coveted living quarters in what are now top-dollar Manhattan neighborhoods like Soho, Tribeca and Chelsea. Similar conversions of former industrial areas are now starting to transform once tough parts of Brooklyn into some of the city s hippest neighborhoods. East Williamsburg and Greenpoint are leading the charge, followed by edgier locales in other boroughs. “Areas of Brooklyn… [more]
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All over Manhattan and this country s urban centers, records are being set for purchases of commercial and residential properties. A handful of private investors in New York City lead the ranks of envelope-pushing buyers, beating out publicly traded companies and real estate investment trusts with huge and lightning fast bids for marquee properties. But some market watchers (and competitors) wonder what might happen if interest rates start to rise or rents fail to increase… [more]
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Bigger is usually better, especially in Manhattan commercial real estate, but who s the biggest of them all? In this issue, The Real Deal presents a review of 10 top landlords whose holdings collectively add up to around 120 million square feet of space, the equivalent of a dozen World Trade Centers. The group, which includes active buyers like Jamestown, SL Green, Tishman Speyer, and The Moinian Group, purchased 13.4 million square feet of office… [more]
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The Plaza may be New York s most venerable hotel, but its recent sale may turn an old-money institution into one of the city s hottest shopping spots. Developers have announced they will create retail space in the hotel, which sits in the middle of Fifth Avenue s stretch of luxury department stores. “Our concept for retail is to custom build between 150,000 and 160,000 square feet on five to six levels for a department… [more]
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City real estate companies have embraced a new service offered by the Real Estate Board of New York to tap into a centralized database of commercial properties listed exclusively for sale or lease, and say it s a much needed supplement to the Costar listing service, which was for many years the only available option. The concept behind the Commercial Listing Exchange is simple: Each Wednesday morning, participating commercial brokerages gather their exclusive listings and… [more]
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Heavy competition between firms for Manhattan office space has driven the vacancy rate to its lowest level since April 2002, and brokers are preparing for a shift from a solid tenant market to one dominated by landlords. Throughout 2004, large blocks of space flew off the shelves at such a high rate that the total inventory of class A buildings with 100,000 square feet or more available was almost halved, dropping from 65 to 34…. [more]
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Manhattan apartment listings became more plentiful last month, rebounding from a steep drop in December but still not nearly meeting demand, brokers and appraisers say. From November to December 2004, the number of exclusive listings available for sale plunged 16.4 percent to 3,922 available apartments, the largest month-to-month drop in five years, according to Jonathan Miller, president of real estate appraisal company Miller Samuel. The numbers rebounded in January, with the addition of 663 apartments… [more]
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In China, the United States is known as “Mei Guo” the Beautiful Country. In the last two years, mainland Chinese buyers have decided that New York is the Beautiful Market, and have been snapping up properties at the same rapid rate their own country s economy has blossomed. While European and Japanese buyers interest in New York apartments can be easily attributed to the weakness of the dollar — down 13 percent against the yen… [more]
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Manhattan s top real estate companies are playing musical chairs along the West Side, changing locations and nudging each other for market share. Corcoran, Elliman and Brown Harris Stevens are unwillingly relocating, as their home base for many years, the Apple Bank Building at 2112 Broadway at 72nd Street, is going condo. As reported in The Real Deal last month, Corcoran will be moving its offices to a 20,000-square-foot space on a high floor of… [more]
