Category : Headline

By Sarah Trefethen BBP SCOTT STRINGER New York City’s plan to sell three downtown office buildings is facing opposition from local politicians who don’t want … Continued

By Sarah Trefethen The way money is flowing these days, corporate tenants may be asking: why rent if you can buy? With lenders less enthused by real estate investment than they are by well-heeled corporate borrowers, some experts say, the interest, taxes and maintenance fees that an owner-occupier would pay for office or retail space in Manhattan stack up favorably against commercial rents. “It’s a cyclical situation,” said Michael Rotchford, Cushman and Wakefield’s head of corporate finance and investment banking. “In certain times in the real estate cycle matched up to the capital cycle it becomes much more affordable for corporations to buy real estate.”

Manhattan’s office market recovery looks to be on summer vacation, and experts are unsure when it’s expected back. Fresh reports from all of the major brokerages point to a second quarter that was far from remarkable, with the overall Manhattan vacancy rate hovering at nine percent and leasing nudging south. “Businesses are clearly using space more efficiently,” said Cushman & Wakefield economist Ken McCarthy at the firm’s mid-year press conference on Tuesday. “If we could add 40,000 office worker jobs we’d get to nine percent [vacancy],” he said.

By Al Barbarino Today’s equity and debt markets face a level of intensified scrutiny that was all but absent during the peak of the market, industry leaders say. Speakers at Bisnow’s 2nd Annual investment Summit at the New York City Bar Association in Midtown last week (Thursday) said that while the industry is showing some signs of a rebound, albeit a lumpy one, managers and lenders are seeking an unprecedented amount of control over deals. “People are looking to cover themselves to make sure they don’t get screwed,” said Michael May, senior managing director at Cantor Fitzgerald, which has closed 100 financings worth $1.5 billion. “One of the biggest changes that we’ve seen is a heightened focus on guaranteed situations,” especially on development deals.

By Sarah Trefethen When the new hotel and residential complex scheduled for completion at Brooklyn Bridge Park in 2015 opens its doors, residents and guests will have as their backyard and playground 85 acres of reclaimed waterfront that its builders and designers hail as a model of sustainable, eco-friendly design. Brooklyn Bridge Park, designed by the landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, has been under construction in phases since 2010. Its forward-thinking and award-winning design was crafted to pay tribute to the history of the waterfront, including the reintroduction of native waterfront plants and the reuse of building materials in the park infrastructure.

By Linda O'Flanagan Alex Sapir and Rotem Rosen have signed 200,000 s/f in a series of leases at 260 and 261 Madison Avenue after a make-over of both the building and the ownership. The leases are understood to be with Fortune 500 companies that include a financial institution and a media company who will join a tenant base that already includes J.P. Morgan, Signature Bank, Hanes Brand, Sara Lee and American Kennel Club. While he declined to identify the new tenants citing confidentiality agreements, Alex Sapir told Real Estate Weekly, “In the last 12 months, we decided to take a much more active role. We injected capital into the buildings, upgrading the utilities and modernizing the aesthetic and design of the lobbies, elevators and other public spaces.”

By Linda O'Flanagan Alex Sapir and Rotem Rosen have signed 200,000 s/f in a series of leases at 260 and 261 Madison Avenue after a makeover of both the building and the ownership. The leases are understood to be with Fortune 500 companies that include a financial institution and a media company that will join a tenant base that already includes J.P. Morgan, Signature Bank, Hanes Brand, Sara Lee and American Kennel Club.

By Al Barbarino A top level team from Jones Lang LaSalle is set to join the hunt for West Side tenants after being tapped by Extell to lease its new 1.7 million square foot Hudson Yards tower. Derek Trulson, Frank Doyle and Randy Abend will lead the effort to fill the new tower that Extell is calling One Hudson Yards. “There have been few things more exciting in my 25-year career in Manhattan real estate than being part of the emergence of a vibrant, new commercial district,” said Doyle. The developer’s decision to go ahead with the building puts him in direct competition for big office tenants with both Related, whose Coach-anchored first Hudson Yards tower will open in 2015, and with Brookfield, which also expects to open its West Side tower late in 2015.