Major Developments:
Amazon leased a warehouse in Staten Island containing 450,000 square feet next to the 855,000-square-foot distribution center in 2017. The new warehouse will focus on last-mile deliveries. Gulliver’s Gate, the miniature-landscapes attraction finally closed its location at 229 West 43rd Street. The two-and-a-half year old company filed for bankruptcy with a plan to restructure its business, which reportedly struggled under the weight of its $5.7 million annual rent.Uncommon Schools signed a deal to take around 42,000 square feet at Rudin Management’s 55 Broad Street. The 15-year lease covers the second and third floors at the 30-story tower. Asking rent was $48 per square foot.
A new co-working space opens its doors in New York every 7.5 days. 65.3% of co-working spaces were opened by new businesses last year. The number of co-working spaces worldwide is expected to double by 2025 Hudson Square and Bryant Park, office tenants signed 145 leases with starting rents at $100 or higher per square foot, totaled about 8.8 million square feet in 2019 or 30% of all the leasing activity in Manhattan for the year.
Nearly half of the major retailers that filed for bankruptcy protection over the past 15 years eventually shut all of their stores. Of 55 retail and supermarket bankruptcies, 25 were liquidated. Retail rents in Soho are continuing their downward trajectory, but that hasn’t put a total freeze on the neighborhood’s property-sales market.
Forever 21’s bankruptcy filing, slashed $91 million in annual rent payments and $100 million in operational costs. They are still asking for more time to orchestrate a sale before competing plans get in the way.
Fendi and Berluti have both signed leases in Vornado’s 595 Madison Avenue, taking the just closed Coach flagship in the building. Coach moved to 685 Fifth Avenue.
Barney’s will significantly shrink its footprint and stay open for at least 12 more months.
Fairway has a bid from Village Super Market to buy up to five of its New York City supermarkets and Fairway’s distribution center for $70 million.
Clothing retailer Express will close 100 stores by 2022. This is part of Express’s plan to reduce costs by $80 million over the next three years.
Pier 1 Imports is the latest retailer to shut hundreds of stores nationwide amid plunging sales. The home goods retailer plans to close almost half of its stores in the U.S.
Apple is considering a 200,000-square-foot space at 11 Penn currently leased to Macy’s. Apple lost out to Facebook for office space at the James A. Farley Post Office building. Facebook committed to the entire 740,000 square feet.
Opening Ceremony, the hip clothing store in Soho is closing both 35 Howard Street and another location in the Ace Hotel in Koreatown.
Tourneau, signed a lease for about 3,500 square feet at Midtown Equities’ 29 Ninth Avenue in the exclusive social club Soho House. The rent works out to $2.1 million per year.
After committing a $9.5 billion rescue package for WeWork and shaking up the firm’s management, SoftBank still believes in the embattled co-working giant’s core business idea.
Knotel laid off as much as a third of its New York-focused staff, as the company faces high vacancy rates and a drop in leasing activity.
New York could get a $119 billion sea wall to help defend the city from future Sandy-like storms, but faces fierce opposition and criticism by environmental and resilience planning experts who described it as an oversimplified idea that doesn’t address multiple serious climate threats and could make things worse.
Commercial property values rose by 2.4% and hotel values went up by less than 1%. The weak growth in valuations comes in the wake of a lengthy slump in New York’s real estate market, which has been facing slow home sales, slow rent growth and declining commercial sales.
600 Broadway appears to be vacant as all the building’s retailers have left. Some have been gone for years. Yet the six-story, 77,280-square-foot building remains 100-percent leased and pulls in more than $10 million in annual rent.
55-59 Chrystie Street A mixed-use property containing about 46,000-square-foot in Chinatown will be auctioned . The building has been owned since 1982 by CTW Realty. Terzi has finalized a court settlement that lets him lease the building and pay rent for 99 years . He had signed a contract in 2016 to buy 23 Wall Street for $140 million from China Sonangol, a company based in Singapore, but the purchase was never completed.
London-based Refinitiv, a financial markets data firm, took three floors at 28 Liberty Street. The asking rent was in the upper $70s per square foot. Crunch is suing its landlord at 250 West 54th Street. Zar Property NY is trying to kick out the fitness chain for using the space as a gym, violating the legal occupancy use for the building and doesn’t have a public assembly certificate of operation.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Penn Station expansion plan has an issue. Michael Orbach who owns a 17-story office building at 259 West 30th Street is angry about the proposal unveiled and doesn’t want to move. Fast food chain Chick-fil-A is opening a new location in the Hive, a 140,000-square-foot development at 675 Eighth Avenue.
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge has ruled that Amazon owes the Durst organization up to $21.65 million after violating the terms of a letter of intent for 310,000 square feet at 1133 Sixth Avenue. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has vetoed plans to develop commercial office space at Hudson River Park’s Pier 40. Cuomo rejected a bill that would have greenlit the development of office space up to eight stories high on the West Village pier.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration will seek to enact a special permit requirement for hotel construction giving the HTC the opportunity ensure new hotels are unionized.
