Category : Featured

The Related Cos. is moving its corporate headquarters to the new Hudson Yards development, chairman Stephen Ross confirmed this week. “Hudson Yards will be the new heart of New York,” Ross said in a statement to Real Estate Weekly. “With all the elements that make this city great, it is the ideal location for Related’s corporate headquarters.” The real estate powerhouse hinted the announcement could be a prelude to a series of big deals coming up at the 26-aqcre development which broke ground last week. “We are in advanced discussions with numerous large-scale corporate tenants,” he said.

Upbeat reports of profitability, strategic implementation and opportunity with new sustainability regulations greeted attendees at the opening session of International Council of Shopping Centers New York National Conference on Monday. Both midtown’s Sheraton Hotel and the Hilton New York burst into a beehive of activity as thousands of the nation’s top retail developers, financiers and tenants came together to broker deals ahead of a potentially uncertain 2013. The energy felt more like the running of the bulls, than a Spanish debt negotiation despite all of the Euro crisis and fiscal cliff news in the headlines. That may be due to the fact that demand for new retail is up, while supply is down.

Brookfield has tapped Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF) as the exclusive leasing agent for its 1.8 million square feet 245 Park Avenue. According to NGKF, a block of 110,000 s/f of space is set to come available at the tower next May. “We are very excited to be partnering with Brookfield, in leasing a Park Avenue trophy asset,” said David Falk, president of the Tri-State Region for Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who will head up the leasing team for the building.

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP and Bernstein Liebhard LLP, co-lead counsel for the plaintiff tenants in the Roberts v. Tishman Speyer class action, announced they have signed an agreement with the defendants to settle all past rent overcharge claims and future rent claims raised in the action. The settlement agreement sets aside $68.75 million to compensate class members for rent overcharges. “Once finally approved, today’s $68.75 million settlement agreement, when combined with past refunds and rent savings the tenants have already received, will bring the total recovery in the lawsuit to at least $146.85 million,” said Alexander Schmidt of Wolf Haldenstein, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney. “There will also be future benefits,” he added.

Co-op City, the sprawling affordable housing development in The Bronx that 57,000 people call home, has landed a $621 million mortgage that will keep it out of private hands for years. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) arranged the deal to refinance a previous mortgage and lower interest payments for the building’s owner . “This is about preserving affordable housing for the next generation of families living and working in one of the nation’s highest cost rental markets,” said HUD secretary Shaun Donovan