Developers have shown plenty of faith in the Manhattan housing market in 2006, but signs of a slowdown loom. Nearly 35 percent of all new condominium and co-op plans in the last 32 months — two-and-a-half years — made it to the office of the state attorney general in the first eight months of 2006. More plans got filed in the first three months of 2006 than in any other quarter going back to the… [more]
October 2006
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The five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks seems like a good time to take stock of the revival of Lower Manhattan. According to a survey by Jones Lang LaSalle, with additional data gathered by The Real Deal, commercial tenants are increasingly signing big leases. The survey, which ranks the top 25 biggest leases signed Downtown since Sept. 11, is topped by deals for space signed last month at Ground Zero buildings, with Moody’s as well… [more]
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Developers are pushing inland into Long Island City, and condominium seekers have followed. The Developers Group in September formally opened the Echelon, a 54-unit, 12-story tower on Jackson Avenue, an event that drew several hundred attendees. The early buyers were offered 2 percent savings on closing costs, which helped put 21 of the units into contract, said David Behin, executive vice president at the Developers Group. Since then, about half of the units have sold,… [more]
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Paul Massey Jr. co-founded the commercial firm Massey Knakal in 1988, and soon found out how ambition’s reach sometimes exceeds its grasp. Some clients, he says, had to be turned away because the young firm did not service the areas the clients coveted. “We couldn’t service them outside the geographic areas where we were,” Massey says. “Now, that’s not a problem.” Massey Knakal has 76 brokers working in the five boroughs, making it one of… [more]
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In Manhattan’s tight commercial market, ambitious developers are turning out office buildings without knowing who’ll occupy them, laying out large sums of cash with increasing confidence they’ll find future tenants. New Jersey developer SJP Properties recently announced it will build a 40-story, 600-foot office building at 11 Times Square on the southeast corner of West 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. That’s the biggest sign that speculative, or spec, development may be catching on. “We are… [more]
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Downtown vs. Midtown building buys: The sales of two cities">
Call it the tale of two New Yorks. Office space in Downtown Manhattan rents at a discount to Midtown space, and the pricing difference is even greater for office building sales. Average asking rents for Downtown office space have risen to $39.23 per square foot in the last year — now hitting 65 percent of the average Midtown asking rent of $60.34 per square foot, according to CB Richard Ellis research. But the expected parallel… [more]
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The tale of Manhattan’s commercial market has been full of happy chapters the last several months. A strong local economy, low unemployment, and steady demand have spurred heavy leasing activity and rising asking rents, tilting the market toward landlords and providing commercial brokers with a steady stream of work. August in Manhattan was no different. Take the Plaza District, for example. The average asking rent in that swath of coveted commercial blocks reached an all-time… [more]
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Industrial space suffers conversion crunch">
For eight decades, the massive, triangle-shaped building in Court Square was a place where people went to work. It was a physical and metaphorical cornerstone for Long Island City, an area that was the industrial anchor of western Queens. The 1920s-vintage, 484,000-square-foot brick edifice first housed a printing plant for Metropolitan Life Insurance and served more recently as the headquarters of Eagle Electric, but its next tenants will call it home when the workday ends…. [more]
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West 8th Street’s retail woes">
Shop owners who still linger on the stretch of Eighth Street, once called the city’s shoe capital, said the September 11 attacks ravaged the shopping district, which remains littered with empty storefronts. Since the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, 24 of 54 shoe stores have closed, a devastating percentage. Today, 16 storefronts remain empty, giving the street a ghostly look and turning off potential new retailers. Other shops sport “Going Out of Business”… [more]
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Swankier retail for the lower Upper West Side">
The Time Warner Center pushed the comeback of the foot of the Upper West Side to a whole new level. The complex’s mall-like shopping atrium is filled with an underground gourmet grocery, chic shops like Hugo Boss and Coach, and expense-account restaurants. The next test of retail at the foot of the Upper West Side on Broadway will be at 15 Central Park West, where condos are setting record prices and where the retail component… [more]
