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News about Brands, including commentary and archival articles published in our Articles.
  • August 2023 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Office: Landlords usually ask tenants to show proof that they are in good financial standing and can be expected to pay rent every month. Tenants are now asking landlords to open up their books and provide protection in case they go under. Tenants are taking a closer look at the capital stack of buildings and considering the exact implications of a landlord defaulting on their obligations. Distress in U.S. office real estate jumped to $24.8B at the end of the second quarter, up $6.7B from the previous three-month period. Office is now the most distressed commercial real estate asset type …

  • December 2022 New York Buildings For Sale
  • Buildings for Sale: Kushner has listed 18 buildings with more than 325 units in Greenwich and East Village for sale, about a third of the firm’s multifamily portfolio in Manhattan. One is a group of 11 buildings in the East Village with 197 units. There are seven buildings in the East Village and West Village with 129 units. An entire building is for sale for $50 million. The 38-unit co-op at 38 Gramercy Park North, keys to the park included, spans 21,400 square feet and comes with 9,750 square feet of additional development rights. Sale could result in luxury condo …

  • June 2021 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Office: Companies that listed their offices for sublease are now pulling them off the market. At least 589,000 square feet of space that was offered for sublease has been delisted. Subleases now account for 30% of total vacant office space. 3.5 million square feet of office space was offered for sublease in the first quarter of the year, compared to 4 million square feet in the fourth quarter of 2020, and 4.6 million square feet in the third quarter of that year. Average asking rent was $72.97 a foot, down 0.4% from March and 8.3% from a year ago. Net …

  • May 2021 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Office: By September, more than 50% expect to be back in the office and an additional 24% back by the fourth quarter, while just 11% wouldn’t return until the first quarter of 2022. Fewer people working in the office could mean smaller offices: 47% would need less space. Yet, future office sizes could also be affected by added emphasis on collaboration spaces, whether they are conference rooms or informal breakout areas. Office availability hit 16.1% in the first quarter of 2020, the highest number on record. The average asking rent was $73.23 per square foot, down 7.6% from a year …

  • April 2021 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Office: As Covid vaccinations bring a return-to-office closer to fruition, more companies are expecting to reduce their real estate footprints. 21% of company executives expect to reduce their office space in the next 12 months, up by 3% points from the third quarter. Total office leasing was also 43% lower than the 2020 monthly average volume of 1.58 million square feet.in 2020. Nearly half of companies expect that employees will be back in offices by September. As of early March, just 10% of Manhattan office employees have returned to the workplace. Some believe the trend of working-from-home or work-from-anywhere is …

  • April 2021 New York Buildings For Sale
  • Buildings for Sale: The Lower East Side building at 217 East Houston Street, home to the nightclub Mercury Lounge, is for sale. The mixed-use tenement building is listed for $7.5 million. Enterprise Asset Management is looking to sell the ground lease on its 20-story office building at 360 Park Avenue South. The 450,000-square-foot building will be completely vacant at the end of the year when the master lease on all of the building’s office space expires. Buildings Sold: The Kaufman Organization closed on a $34.5 million ground lease at the Haymarket Building. The organization signed a 99-year ground lease with …

  • February 2021 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Manhattan Office: Manhattan’s office availability hit a record high of 14.3%, 16.3% higher than the third quarter and up 43% from a year ago. A big chunk of that 24.2% was sublet inventory, which expanded by 6.45 million square feet in the past year. Overall, the pandemic left a large scar in Manhattan’s office market in 2020, reducing the annual leasing volume to 18.9 million square feet, down by 56% from a year ago. Leasing Sublease space in Manhattan’s office market continued to grow in the last quarter of the year, and has now reached the highest level this century. …

  • February 2021 New York Buildings For Sale
  • Buildings Sold: Dynamic Star continues to snap up properties as it moves forward with a massive mixed-use project in the Bronx. Dynamic Star purchased a concrete plant site along the Major Deegan Expressway for $21 million. The development firm intends to incorporate the new parcel into Fordham Landing, the $3.5 billion megaproject it’s planning in University Heights near the Harlem River. A $75 million loan tied to the Gramercy Park Hotel sold to an anonymous buyer. JPMorgan Chase sold the debt, which has a maximum principal amount of $75 million, to RDAC 8 LLC. The loan is secured by the …

  • December 2020 New York New Developments
  • New York New Developments The planned redevelopment of the Grand Hyatt Hotel could consist of a supertall tower rising more than 1,600 feet. The development at 109 East 42nd Street is tentatively called the Project Commodore. The proposed building would have 2.1 million square feet of office space, a 500-room hotel, around 10,000 square feet of open-air public space with 43,370 square feet of retail. Vornado Realty Trust has suspended its efforts to sell two office towers that it co-owns with the Trump Organization. They had been looking for a buyer for its 70% stake in the buildings, located at …

  • October 2020 New York New Developments
  • New York New Developments Vacant office and retail space will have a domino effect on the city’s budget and economy. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $12 billion budget deficit by 2021. The low office numbers have also led to a projected $9 billion drop in sales tax and other revenues. About 24,000 New Yorkers have lost their lives to the coronavirus. The unemployment rate is 16% and just 10% of workers have returned to the office by September. Personal income tax revenue may drop by $2 billion this fiscal year. Only a third of hotel rooms are occupied, and …

  • September 2020 New York New Developments
  • New York New Developments The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to cut service by 40% if Washington does not send $12 billion in federal aid, crippling the city’s chances to come back from the pandemic. The timeline for the overhaul of John F. Kennedy International Airport will likely be pushed back years because of plummeting passenger demand. Passenger volume is down 85%, and officials warn that passenger numbers might not match last year’s level of nearly 62 million passengers until 2023. July was the slowest month of the year for large construction applications. The total size of the 10 biggest projects …

  • August 2020 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Manhattan Office: Manhattan office leasing in the second quarter of 2020 totalled just 3.18 million square feet. That is 50% of the prior quarter and down 72% year-over-year. This is the slowest quarter for Manhattan office leasing since 2009. Office workers have been working from home during Covid. How many will remain at home after Covid has yet to be determined. Midtown saw 1.88 million square feet in leasing activity in the quarter, down 52% year-over-year. Midtown South leasing activity declined 87% year-over-year to just 640,000 square feet. Leasing activity downtown fell 73% year-over-year to 660,000 square feet. Manhattan’s Office …

  • April 2020 New York New Developments
  • New York New Developments Gov. Andrew Cuomo barred all employees of non-essential businesses from reporting to work, and laid out what amounts to shelter-in-place rules for New Yorkers, though he avoided the phrase. The order exempts food businesses and others deemed essential. After saying he will halt all residential and commercial evictions for 90 days, Cuomo noted that landlords would have a hard time renting out vacant apartments anyway, and real estate agents can’t show apartments under the new workforce rules. About $20 billion in retail property loans are coming due, and it’s unclear how much of that debt will …

  • March 2020 New York New Developments
  • Major Developments: Cosi has filed for Chapter 11 for the second time in four years. The company has locations across the U.S. Modell’s Sporting Goods is renegotiating leases in more than 150 locations across 10 states. They sent letters to 19 landlords pleading with them to “dig deeper” so the retailer can avoid filing for bankruptcy. The latest proposal to expand Penn Station includes buying a full city block to the south for an entirely new terminal with eight tracks. The governor now has sights on West 30th and West 31st streets between Seventh and Eighth avenues for the “Empire …

  • November 2019 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Office leasing volume from the top 10 leases was 820,500 square feet. With half of them coming from WeWork, who will be out of the market for a while if at all. Other big tenants include law firms, branding agencies and Knotel. Manhattan Retail: Retail leasing for gyms and restaurants were among the largest deals. The top was Ikea’s first Queens location. Manhattan Sales: Manhattan investment sales hit a two-year low with $995 million in deals recorded, 52% down from June and 59% below the 12-month average. The borough’s largest deal was Savanna’s $180 million buy of 360 Lexington Avenue …

  • November 2019 New York New Developments
  • Major Developments: Barneys has been sold to Authentic Brands Group and B. Riley for around $270 million. The new owners will likely shut Barneys’ locations, including its 275,000-square-foot flagship property at 660 Madison Avenue. IBM is looking for 500,000 square feet to consolidate its New York office space from multiple locations including a WeWork. IBM’s lease at WeWork’s 88 University runs through 2024. Vornado Realty Trust has encountered more retail challenges as Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy protection. However, Forever 21 may be able to keep its stores at 435 Seventh Avenue and 1540 Broadway open for a bit longer. …

  • October 2019 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Market Overview: Leasing was slow last month with the top 10 leases comprising only of 464,100 versus last month total of 2.9 million square feet. The total is also down year-over-year. The top 10 office leasing deals of August 2018 totaled about 1.3 million square feet. EisnerAmper inked a 15-year lease for 125,000 square feet of space at 733 Third Avenue, The landlord is the Durst Organization. New York Times signed a 15-year lease for 57,846 square feet of space at 24-01 44th Road. The landlord is United Nations Federal Credit Union. WeWork firm inked a 15-year lease for 56,000 …

  • April 2019 New York New Developments
  • Major Developments: Gyms and athletic wear retailers once again dominated the retail leasing scene last month in New York City, securing four of the top 10 biggest deals. The rest mostly comprised of restaurants. The biggest retail lease deals signed last month totaled 188,100 square feet, down 41,600 square feet from January’s total of 229,700 square feet. In February of 2018, the top 10 retail leases totaled 108,200 square feet. Hermès of Paris inked a lease for 40,000 square feet of space at 706 Madison Avenue for a new flagship location. The building’s landlord is Friedland Properties. Brooklyn Boulders signed …

  • January 2019 New York New Developments
  • NYC Major Developments: Overall, November’s top office leases outpaced October’s top office leases. The 10 biggest deals signed last month totaled 1.8 million square feet, up 400,000 square feet from October’s total of 1.4 million square feet. The largest office lease in November was signed in Grand Central. Bloomberg LP renewed its 11-year lease for 468,000 square feet of space at 120 Park Avenue. Ralph Lauren expanded its lease for 350,000 square feet of space at 601 West 26th Street. RXR Realty refinanced the property with a $900 million loan from New York Community Bank. Peloton signed a lease for …

  • May 2018 New York New Developments
  • New York Major Developments: 666 Fifth Avenue announced that the tower lost $25 million in 2017, largely due to the debt service on the property outweighing its net income. Chinese developer Zhonghong Holdings has defaulted on more than $174 million debt, just one year after the company tried to buy a senior living facility chain. Brookdale Senior Living for $4 billion. Co-working companies have stepped up their game in New York City, increasingly competing with traditional commercial landlords for the same tenants. Sixteen co-working companies have leased 664,000 square feet in the city so far in 2018. Brookfield Property Partners …

  • September 2017 New York New Developments
  • New York Major Developments: Brookfield Property Partners are in talks to become a partner in one of the largest redevelopment projects underway in New York City. Brookfield is negotiating to acquire a stake in the St. John’s Terminal site, which Westbrook Partners and Atlas Capital Partners are planning to transform into a five-tower, 1.7 million-square-foot mixed-use complex. The three-block-long site which consists of north, south and center sections would hold 1,586 rental apartments, offices, a hotel and around 400,000 square feet of retail space next to Hudson River Park’s Pier 40. Manhattan’s hotel market may be nearing the end of …

  • June 2017 New York New Developments
  • Major Developments: Developer David Marx continues to put the pieces together for an upcoming Aloft hotel at 450 11th Avenue, refinancing the project with $67 million in loans. The de Blasio administration is finally moving forward with a proposal it announced 18 months ago to curtail the city’s emerging self-storage industry as part of City Hall’s plan to preserve middle-class jobs by regulating development in certain manufacturing zones. Several retail brands are on the lookout for large spaces in the borough, including discount clothier Primark. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $75 million towards the construction of the Shed, an arts …

  • March 2016: New York Buildings For Sale
  • New York Buildings sold Gary Barnett's Extell Development made another deal with the Duell family, buying four adjacent commercial buildings on Sixth Avenue in the Flatiron District for a combined $50 million. The buildings collectively have about 63,500 buildable square feet. At 116 Seventh Avenue and 204 117th Street for $11 million. Extell also bought 502 Third Avenue, a rental property with ground-floor retail, from the family for another $11 million around the same time.Extell Development is in talks to buy a Greenwich Village commercial property with substantial development rights from the Duell family. 530 Sixth Avenue is an existing …

  • January 2016: New York Buildings For Sale
  • New Developments Retail:Overseas retail Brands operate 39% of the stores on Fifth and Madison Avenues and in Soho. Of the 906 retailers, Soho is the most nationally-diverse area, with 24 countries represented. Fifth Avenue had 17 non-U.S. outlets and Madison Avenue had 13. Italianstores had the largest number of stores in those areas.Footlocker and Nike signed leases for large spaces on Broadway. Footlocker signed a $15 million deal to lease 36,000 square feet at 1460 Broadway and Nike signed a $16 million lease for 55,000 square feet at 529 Broadway.Gap signed two leases at 1514 Broadway, into two stores for …

  • January 2016: New York New Developments
  • New Developments Retail:Overseas retail Brands operate 39% of the stores on Fifth and Madison Avenues and in Soho. Of the 906 retailers, Soho is the most nationally-diverse area, with 24 countries represented. Fifth Avenue had 17 non-U.S. outlets and Madison Avenue had 13. Italianstores had the largest number of stores in those areas.Footlocker and Nike signed leases for large spaces on Broadway. Footlocker signed a $15 million deal to lease 36,000 square feet at 1460 Broadway and Nike signed a $16 million lease for 55,000 square feet at 529 Broadway.Gap signed two leases at 1514 Broadway, into two stores for …

  • August 2015: New York Buildings For Sale
  • NYC Buildings For Sale The Related Cos. is considering selling a stake in its 10 Hudson Yards office tower now that the building is almost fully leased. The developer is in discussions with Boston Consulting Group to take about 175,000 square feet at 10 Hudson Yards, which would boost the building to near full occupancy before its scheduled completion early next year. A stake sale would allow Related and equity partner Oxford Properties Group to capitalize on the building's value and provide funds to finance further construction at the 28-acre, $20 billion development. Ian Bruce Eichner is shopping around his …

  • July 2015: New York New Developments
  • New York University's campus expansion plans to expand the school by about 2 million square feet in Greenwich Village hasve been approved by Tthe New York State Court of Appeals.s gave an approval to New York University's campus expansion plans to expand the school by about 2 million square feet in Greenwich Village. Neighborhood activists sued to prevent the expansion, claiming it used land that was permanently designated for public park use. The plan will create new high rises on two blocks between West Third and Houston Streets and La Guardia Place and Mercer Street. FAO Schwarz is close to …

  • June 2015: New York New Developments
  • Foot traffic on madison avenue has declined by 200,000 people over the last seven months when the Whitney closed in October. While many luxury retailers still maintain locations there, some of them are global brands that are simply there for the status and are actually losing money on the area rents.The City Council approved plans for One Vanderbilt, the 63-story, 1.6 million-square-foot office tower to be built next to Grand Central Station. The tower will be anchored by TD Bank, with 200,000 square feet. One Vanderbilt will deliver critically-needed, state-of-the-art Class A office space and dramatically upgrade Grand Central's overburdened …

  • July 2014: New York New Developments
  • A Private Upper East Side girls' school sent a letter to parents saying the school has been reviewing 20 sites that would accommodate the school's 700 students. The K through 12th grade school has operated out of a 12-story brick building at 610 East 83rd Street since 1929.The Bauhouse Group has recently secured a $35 million construction loan from Doral Bank to finance its condominium-and-retail project in Chelsea. The developers acquired a 35,000-square-foot, six-story warehouse at 515 West 29th Street for $24.4 million, and {dynamic_word3} three additional parcels of air rights for a total of $6 million. Permits have been …

  • February 2014 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • Chinese Real estate investors were the largest investors in New York City in the world Increased availability of debt and an uptick in office rents drove demand for large Manhattan office towers in 2013. The top 10 priciest building sales of the year included nine office buildings — a threefold increase over the three office towers that cracked the top 10 list in 2012. Sales volume for all New York City properties could reach a record $63 billion this year, soaring 68 percent from last year. The dollar volume of New York City investment property trades is up 35 percent …

  • February 2013: New York City New Developments
  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave New Yorkers whose homes were devastated by Hurricane Sandy a 30-day extension on applications for home repairs. The Transitional Sheltering Assistance program, which has helped New Yorkers continue living in participating hotels and motels, will also be extended. Governor Cuomo requested that FEMA grant extensions. Alexander McQueen plans to decamp to 747 Madison Avenue. The designer will lease a double-height 3,300-square-foot space owned by Jeff Sutton, paying $1,300 per square foot during the 15-year lease. Fashion label Escada previously took up a portion of the retail space. Before that, Valentino occupied the space during …

  • September 2012 New York New Developments
  • New Developments The Related Companies has won wage-cutting agreements with some four dozen construction unions in its efforts to save money at the $15 billion development of Hudson Yards. The developer, one of the most outspoken for the need to cut construction costs during contract negotiations with unions last year, got the groups to agree to cut wages and benefit packages by 10 percent to ensure they would be commissioned to work the massive construction project expected to carry on for the next decade. The deal is not yet final.With public support, the Kingsbridge Armory ice rink plan may appear …

  • February 2012 New York New Developments
  • New York Major Developments The 226-room Courtyard Marriott on East 92nd Street may close this spring, in the wake of two years of legal battles, including a lawsuit against Marriott International. It is scheduled to lay off 59 employees by March 30. Having already ceded some of its demand to recent upstart office markets like Midtown South and downtown Manhattan, Midtown East is the subject of a Department of City Planning review intending to probe whether it needs to incentivize commercial property upgrades in the area Midtown East has more than 70 million square feet of office space, 13 Fortune …

  • January 2012: Manhattan City New Developments
  • Manhattan New Developments Cornell University, in partnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will build a 2 million-square-foot applied science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island. Atlantic Philanthropies a charitable organization founded by billionaire Charles Feeney made the $350 million gift to go towards the creation of Cornell University's 2 million-square-foot applied science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island. Feeney, who made billions of dollars through co-founding the Duty Free Shoppers Group, graduated from Cornell's School of Hotel Management in 1956, and has been consistently making donations to his alma mater.Brooklyn politicians were still hoping on another phrase the mayor uttered …

  • May 2011 New York New Developments
  • Major Developments Mall of America developer Triple Five has reached a deal with lenders and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's administration to reboot and expand the stalled Xanadu complex in the Meadowlands,. The checkered, 2.4 million-square-foot complex, originally envisioned as a retail and entertainment destination that would rejuvenate East Rutherford, has sat incomplete along the New Jersey Turnpike for years, sapping up $1.9 billion in the process and developing a reputation as the poster child for failed boom-time real estate projects.Real estate investment firms Savanna and Monday Properties are launching a $30 million capital improvement for a 20-story, 260,000-square-foot commercial …

  • May 2011 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • The Manhattan office vacancy rate increased in the first quarter of 2011 even as employment in the professional sector rose at the fastest rate since 2000. There were 11,500 new office workers in the first three months of this year. The first-quarter vacancy rate rose even as employment moved up because, large blocks of space being added to the market from tenants who signed relocation deals last year, and because many firms have excess space for their new hires.New York City office rentals got more expensive in the first quarter of 2011, even as vacancy and absorption rates remained mostly …

  • January 2011 New York New Developments
  • New Developments Columbia University may be moving forward with plans for a $6.3 billion expansion after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by local businesses whose properties may be subject to eminent domain. The justices refused to question findings by a state development agency and said that the area is blighted and that the expansion has a legitimate public purpose. Several years back, retail giant Walmart tried to open stores in Queens and Staten Island, but backed off after fierce community opposition. Now the discount chain store is trying again to break into the New York City market, since …

  • February 2010 New York New Developments
  • New Developments The year-end review of Manhattan commercial real estate casts doubt on 2010's outlook. Commercial property sales volume was weak through the end of 2009, with projections suggesting that the total volume for the year was just $5.7 billion, a decline from $23.6 billion in 2008 and $62.8 billion in 2007.Manhattan commercial property sales volume remained slow through the end of 2009. Total commercial property sales for the year were just $5.5 billion, down from the peak level of $62.8 billion in 2007, and less than a third of the total sales made in 2008. There is pent-up energy …

  • August 2009 New York New Developments
  • New Developments After many years of construction on Fulton Street, small business owners are now able to apply for grants from the city to improve storefronts that have been obstructed or damaged by the construction. The Fulton Nassau Crossroads Program, funded by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, offers free design, engineering and construction management, along with $275,000 for construction, to buildings located on Fulton and Nassau streets.Law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe may sign a lease for 220,000 square feet at 51 West 52nd Street. They will take the space previously occupied by UBS and Cushman & Wakefield. Cushman will …

  • July 2007 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
  • New York City New Construction:Sitt of Thor Equities scaling back plans for Coney Island from 2 billion to 1.5 billion. Sitt has already spent $120 million buying up land. Dropped 40 story tower. Rental apartment and condominiums and making project less dense.New York City Buildings Leases:Davis Polk renewed and expanded lease to 650,000 sf at 450 Lexington Avenue.MTV Networks Entertainment Group leases 400,000 sf at 345 Hudson Street.Limited Brands renewed lease of 125,000 sf at 400 Lafayette Street.BBDO renewed lease of 41,000 sf at 1375 Broadway.Choice Logistics leases 34,000 sf at 1 Whitehall Street.NaviSite Corporation leases 33,000 sf at 395 …

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