New York Major Developments:
Starwood Mortgage Capital provided a $105 million loan for Aurora Capital Associates and William Gottlieb Real Estate’s Restoration Hardware project in the Meatpacking District. The 10-year loan retires a $60 million loan from Wells Fargo. Aurora and Gottlieb are building a 60,000-square-foot retail project at 9-19 Ninth Avenue, where Restoration Hardware signed a 15-year lease worth $250 million.Northern Manhattan’s commercial real estate market was sluggish. A total of 138 properties sold in 154 deals for a total dollar volume of $694 million uptown, down 64% year-over-year. The average price per buildable square foot at development sites dropped 12% to $200, the same in 2015.
The City Council’s Committee on Land Use is to vote on the proposal to rezone 78 blocks in Midtown East, which could create 6.5 million square feet of new office space over the next two decades. Only a small handful of the 16 sites the city’s identified for redevelopment could get started in the near term. If the Midtown rezoning passes next week, it will tangibly impact the market in 2027 to 2037.
RFR Realty refinanced 90 Fifth Avenue office building with $105 million in loans. Until 2013, the building was majority occupied by Forbes, but the company defaulted on a $650,000 monthly rent payment. That lead to Jamestown Properties backing out of a deal to buy the building for $115 million because of the default.
Starbucks Coffee’s three Teavana stores in New York City are closing. The Seattle-based coffee company announced it would shutter all its 379 Teavana stores by the spring of 2018. In New York, that includes 1291 Lexington Avenue and 2261 Broadway.
The Archdiocese of New York has announced that 12 churches can be sold in the future. There is a $7 million deal for the Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz at 378 Broome Street. No other churches have pending deals in place, the individual parishes will determine what to do with the sites.
5731 Broadway (Bronx) will be a homeless shelter. Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed dealing with New York’s homelessness crisis by opening 90 additional shelters in the city.
The Hudson Yards will be eventually home to thousands of residents and even more office workers, but as of now the area has little to offer. Michael Fascitelli and Eric Birnbaum are bringing a high-end restaurant to their 33-story rental tower Henry Hall at 509 West 38th Street.
There are signs that the Chinese real estate spree in New York City could be over. Chinese regulators plan to cut off funding on six investments made by Dalian Wanda Group, one of five big spenders that have come under increased scrutiny as the government clamps down on overseas investments.
Rabin filed a Chapter 11 petition for Peter Elliot Women at 1071 Madison Avenue. To date this year, more than 300 retailers have filed for bankruptcy.
The principals of the Tao Group picked up a stake in a 618-key hotel across from Madison Square Garden, a few months after the family that controls the famed arena bought a controlling interest in their hospitality company.
New Jersey-based importer-exporter Frank Ng is planning to build a 32-story, 203-key hotel at 132 West 28th Street in Chelsea. Ng filed plans for a 326-foot tall building at 132 West 28th Street. The proposed building would feature 95,158 square feet of commercial space and 30,086 square feet of residential space.
A partnership between SL Green Realty and RXR Realty is the front-runner to land New York REIT’s Midtown office tower One Worldwide Plaza after bidding $1.7 billion. The bid translates to around $810 per square foot.
A growing number of food and drink producers are opening stores in Manhattan and hope to bypass grocery stores by selling their goods directly to consumers. The idea behind the space is to advertise the product not so much to generate sales.
Hotel developer, Nehalkumar Gandhi, filed plans for yet another hotel: a 66-key development in the Bronx. The seven-story hotel would be located at 1893 Washington Avenue in Tremont and span 23,897 square feet.
The New York City Department of Buildings is standing by its recent crackdown on office roof terraces, claiming that the outdoor spaces can only be used for plants. Landlords argue that the DOB is misinterpreting a 1961 zoning provision. The measure, according to landlords, was intended to stop building owners from using the roof spaces for flea markets at the time.
The General Services Administration, the agency that manages federal real estate, is calling off a competition to build a new $2 billion headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new headquarters anytime soon.
Turner Impact Capital is working to bring a charter school to the Bronx and has filed plans to construct a three-story charter school at 625 Bolton Avenue in Clason Point. The school, called the Grand Concourse Academy Charter School, would span about 50,000 square feet and include classrooms, meeting rooms, a library, a student lounge and a gym. Turner Impact bought the vacant lot for $3.5 million and then leased the site to the charter school.
Solow recently began demolition work on a series of buildings across the street from its office tower 9 West 57th Street, with plans to build the latest condominium on Billionaires’ Row. But cannot until he can get rid of the lone holdout tenant at 10 West 57th Street, Metropolitan Fine Arts and Antiques, which is paying $283,000 a month in rent.
WeWork’s Chinese competitor UrWork plans to open its first New York City location. UrWork announced that it had joined forces with Serendipity Labs on a 34,000-square-foot lease at Fosun International’s 28 Liberty Street in the Financial District.
