Category : Featured

Deals & DealmakersDebt & EquityFeatured

Savanna signs $145M refi’ deal for 1375 Broadway

REW Staff
by REW Staff736
Savanna, a New York-based real estate private equity and asset management firm, has refinanced $145 million in first mortgage debt for 1375 Broadway with Mesa West Capital, including capital for future leasing costs. The loan is secured by 1375 Broadway, a 513,401 s/f multi-tenant office building located at the northwest corner of Broadway and West 37th Street in Manhattan’s Midtown South office market. Jon Estreich, president of Estreich & Co., arranged the debt on behalf of the borrower. “The refinancing of 1375 Broadway illustrates the substantial progress that Savanna has made in repositioning the building,” said Cooper Kramer, vice president at Savanna.
Deals & DealmakersFeatured

New RSA chairman warns ‘Bronx is burning’ days could return to NYC

REW Staff
by REW Staff1196
The newly elected chairman of the city’s biggest landlord group has warned that New York “could plunge into a Detroit-like landscape or a repeat of the Bronx of the 1970s.” Following his election on Wednesday, Aaron Sirulnick said a strong partnership between property owners and Albany and City Hall is imperative. “We fuel the city and state’s economic engines – and, equally important, we maintain and provide solid, quality housing. “Without a meaningful plan and genuine partnership, we are headed on a destructive path that over the next 10 to 15 years will bring deterioration of affordable housing stock.”
Being one of the good guys helps Vanderpool land his dream job
Deals & DealmakersFeatured

Being one of the good guys helps Vanderpool land his dream job

REW
by REW1075
By Orlando Lee Rodriguez Convention states that no one wakes up one day and says: “I want to be a real estate agent.” Unless your name is Peter Vanderpool. For the co-founder of Cignature Realty, whose father was a real estate attorney, the dream of being in the business has existed since he was a kid growing up in Plainview, Long Island. “I always knew I wanted to be involved,” Vanderpool said. “I just wasn’t sure in what capacity.”
Durst Organization polishing up its Front Street gem
Deals & DealmakersFeatured

Durst Organization polishing up its Front Street gem

Sarah Trefethen
by Sarah Trefethen946
By Sarah Trefethen Superstorm Sandy hit the South Street Seaport Historic District hard, but at least one block of the brick-and-cobblestone retail and residential neighborhood — which saw water seven feet or higher on ground floors — may be back to normal in time for the Fourth of July. The Durst Organization’s Historic Front Street property has been under renovation since the storm, and the developer has hired Peter Braus of Lee and Associates NYC to handle lease negotiations for the street’s 11 storefronts.
Deals & DealmakersFeatured

Partners bag a $1.3B bargain

Linda O'Flanagan
by Linda O'Flanagan1171
By Linda O'FLanagan Crown Acquisitions and investment firm Highgate have bought the trophy glass tower at 650 Madison for $1.3 billion. The 27-story glass and steel building was sold by the Carlyle Group, who bought it with Ashkenazy Acuisitions for $680 million in 2008. “We had a strong conviction in the underlying value of this property when we acquired it during the Great Recession, and we are pleased to capitalize on the success of our active repositioning and leasing plan,” said Carlyle managing director Andrew Chung. The buyers believe they just bagged a bargain.
FeaturedResidential

Townhouse plan takes another step forward

REW
by REW710
By Orlando Lee Rodriguez An undeveloped plot of land in Downtown Mamaroneck that sits alongside the first highway in the United States is ready to start construction, and the developer is in search of a financial backer. Developer John Lese, says that his plan to build a group of townhouse apartments at 208 West Boston Post Road will go forward when either a joint venture partner is found or he receives total package financing by a lender.
Deals & DealmakersFeatured

Cushman & Wakefield dominates Jersey deal awards

REW Staff
by REW Staff970
With two winners and a third finalist in this year’s NAIOP New Jersey Deal of the Year awards competition, Cushman & Wakefield, Inc. was recognized for its involvement in the state’s most creative and impactful 2012 office real estate transactions. 67 Whippany Road The honors continue the firm’s long-standing track record of NAIOP accolades; Cushman & Wakefield has won 11 New Jersey Deal of the Year awards over the past decade.
Deals & DealmakersFeatured

Bonjour Capital ends bickering over condo plan

REW
by REW1758
By Orlando Lee Rodriguez A neighborhood eyesore in Brooklyn now has new life, after attorneys for new investors beat back an 11th-hour bankruptcy by the property’s former owners. 333 Greene Avenue, a long-stalled 12-story project just over the Bedford-Stuyvesant border from Clinton Hill, has sat vacant for years while the former owners fought each other in court. Manhattan based investment firm Bonjour Capital snagged the dormant REO property for $16 million at a foreclosure action in January from Banco Popular. But the project’s former owners filed separately for bankruptcy, putting the sale to Bonjour on ice.
FeaturedResidential

Piazza cake! Turing terraces into more dollars psf

Linda O'Flanagan
by Linda O'Flanagan1531
By Linda O'Flanagan Thousands of New Yorkers are living in homes roughly 70 square feet bigger than they thought — and they do nothing with that extra space. With the average apartment price in Manhattan hitting $1,185 psf in the first quarter of this year, according to Halstead, that's a lot of cash to overlook if you are in the market for sale. That unaccounted for space is the balcony — on average 6 ft. by 11 ft. in Manhattan, according to Miller Samuel Inc. — that most folk use for extra storage or as a graveyard for dead house plants. But a little bit of TLC and some serious thought can be the difference between hanging a “sold” sign or languishing on the market, according to some of the city's top staging experts.