Development Corp

• November 2024 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Fortress won the right to go after Cohen for a $187 million personal guarantee he signed in 2022. When Cohen quit making payments on the $534 million loan earlier this year, Fortress sued, alleging default. They will appeal the decision. First, the parties have to see through the $534 million UCC foreclosure Fortress Fortress pursues largest UCC foreclosure ever on the courthouse steps. Assets tied to a $534 million loan Fortress Investment Group alleges is in default and a $187 million personal guarantee the lender won the right to collect on. Fortress could then, potentially, pursue the claim …
  
  
• October 2024 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty to five criminal charges from an alleged bribery scheme for luxury travel and fraudulent campaign donations. Adams pleaded not guilty before being released without bail. The battle over a hotel licensing bill continues over a requirement for hotel operators to obtain licenses and, in many cases, change the way they operate. The bill has pitted union members against subcontractors as the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council pushes the bill and the hotel industry assails it as a back-door attempt at unionization. RFR sues Cooper Union to stop Chrysler Building eviction. Cooper Union …
  
  
• July 2024 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: The Adams administration’s plan to rezone a 46-block area of the Bronx is moving forward, with a final City Council vote expected this summer. New York City Planning Commission signed off on the plan, which targets the areas surrounding the four new Metro-North Stations planned for Co-op City, Hunts Point, Morris Park and Parkchester/Van Nest. The stations are expected to be built by 2027. The rezoning is expected to pave the way for 7,474 apartments, and add more than 300,000 gross square feet of retail space, 1.6 million square feet of life-science space and 1.2 million square feet …
  
  
• June 2024 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: New York City’s Conversion Accelerator Program has received interest from 64 office landlords seeking to convert their office properties to housing. Four buildings that have already been converted or begun construction through the accelerator, creating about 2,100 apartments. 650 First Avenue and 980 Sixth Avenue have received permits to begin renovations for reuse. The accelerator, announced in August, assists developers in navigating city laws and bureaucracy to expedite complex conversion projects. Coupled with Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to rezone Midtown, the initiative's aim is to create 20,000 apartments from underutilized office stock over the next decade. City Planning …
  
  
• January 2024 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the LLC Transparency Act but made a critical change to keep information on limited liability companies out of public view. The owners behind these entities will have to disclose their names and business addresses to the state government, which will keep it confidential. The governor signed a bill that expands the definition of fraud in rent overcharge cases. Governor Hochul unveiled plans for more than 2,800 homes in Queens. The governor will tap industry to revamp 58 acres of underutilized land at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center. 1,633 homes will be for sale, as two-story homes …
  
  
• December 2023 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: The U.S. Immigration Fund of a 22-acre megaproject that was supposed to deliver more than 3,000 units of housing in Brooklyn is at risk of losing control of several still-unbuilt development sites. to foreclose on six sites owned by Greenland USA. Steve Cohen details his Queens casino plan dba Metropolitan Park would be an 8 billion project near Citi Field and spread over 50 acres of parking lots surrounding Citi Field, home to the Mets. Hard Rock International is partnering with Cohen on the project. Cohen’s plan includes a hotel, music venue, food hall and 20 acres of …
  
  
• October 2023 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: The Adams administration laid out a framework to change the area’s light manufacturing zoning to allow for higher density residential and commercial use. The rezoning is expected to create between 1,150 and 1,500 below market–rate apartments, depending on the options developers select under the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law. NY City's plan to rezone a 13-block stretch of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn would spur the construction of 4,000 apartments, up to 38 % affordable. The projects would have to deliver affordable units and other benefits required by the new zoning. Other rezonings in the works include a 46-block area …
  
  
• September 2023 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Blackstone and Hudson Pacific Properties are joining with Vornado to build a new film studio on Manhattan’s West Side. Dubbed Sunset Pier 94 Studios, the project would be developed as a public-private partnership with New York City Economic Development Corp. The total investment from the three publicly traded firms will be about $350 million. The campus would span 266,000 SF with six soundstages. The development would feature a 1,850 SF amenity space, 25,000 SF of waterfront open space. Vornado has the long-term leasehold on Pier 94 and is providing the lease to the joint venture, in which it …
  
  
• August 2023 New York Buildings For Sale
• Buildings for Sale: In the first quarter, investors spent less than $500 million buying Manhattan office properties, down from $5 billion in the first quarter of last year. Värde Partners aims to force the sale of Public Hotel. Steve Witkoff and Ian Schrager appeared to have gotten a handle on the debt at their Public Hotel after falling behind on their mortgage. Witkoff and Schrager are facing a UCC foreclosure on their equity in the 367-room hotel at 215 Chrystie Street. The partners owe more than $86 million in mezzanine debt from Värde Partners. The sale is scheduled for Sept. …
  
  
• June 2023 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Hennepin County wrongfully pocketed the excess proceeds from the sale of Geraldine Tyler’s condo unit. Tyler owed the county $15,000, a sum that ballooned from $2,311 in unpaid property taxes. To settle the debt, the county sold her condo unit for $40,000 and kept all of it. The court agreed that this violated the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, reversing the Eighth Circuit’s decision in the county’s favor. NYC’s lien sale, debt from overdue taxes, water bills and the like is sold to an investment trust that can foreclose on the property …
  
  
• October 2022 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Office: September office occupancy numbers may represent a new normal. As more companies are settling into a wide range of work policies, from full-time, never or somewhere in between. The pandemic-induced drop in office use is projected to have a devastating effect on the market. The city’s office buildings will fall in value by 28%, or $49 billion. The stretch along Third Avenue from 42nd Street to 59th Street is becoming a stark example of the downside to the city’s ongoing flight to quality. The city’s office vacancy rate is at 19%, it is 29% on the 17-block corridor, nearly …
  
  
• March 2022 New York New Developments
• Major Developments Since New York State legalized recreational marijuana, operators are rushing to set up stores. There is a very high influx of cannabis operators looking for space in Manhattan. MRR Development scored a loan worth $113 million to refinance the Hotel Indigo on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The loan was through an Israeli bond market. Wells Fargo, acting as a trustee for commercial mortgage bondholders, is seeking to foreclose on Terzi’s property at 63 Spring Street, alleging Terzi has been in default on an $18.5 million CMBS loan since April 2020. Andrew Kimball is expected to be appointed as …
  
  
• March 2022 New York Buildings For Sale
• For Sale: GFP Real Estate is looking to sell an industrial property (Bushwick Place) on the border of East Williamsburg and Bushwick for $30 million. The decision was made after a noodle manufacturer renewed its lease for the 71,500-square foot Brooklyn building for 10 years. Properties Sold: An institutional owner sold 375 West Broadway for $130 million. The building houses a 10,000-square-foot Gucci store on the ground floor beneath 60,000 square feet of office space. Oaktree Capital Management sold a condominium building at 90 Greene Street for $39.4 million to Acadia Realty Trust. The building contains 11,200-square-foot with four full-floor …
  
  
• February 2022 New York New Developments
• Major Developments Tentative property Real Estate Tax assessments for rental buildings in New York City are up 8.6%. Rental buildings’ market value jumped by 11.7%, while the assessed value that owners are taxed on rose by 8.6%. Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed $2 billion in pandemic relief money that could fund the emergency rental assistance program. Extell Development received permits for a more than 541,000-square-foot, 1,350-key hotel tower at 740 Eighth Avenue in the Theater Subdistrict, an area exempt from the recently enacted requirement that developers must obtain a special permit for new hotels. Hakimian filed documents changing a 113,000-square-foot Midtown …
  
  
• January 2021 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments Covid-19 vaccines are being distributed. A return to the office likely will not happen until early summer. It will take months for the vaccine rollout to become effective and for employees to reach herd immunity, meaning remote work will continue into the next year and office rents will continue to drop. Some companies are planning their return to the office in light of the vaccine news. In New York, 25 new tenants per week were searching for office space in the first two weeks of December, up from 20 per week in November. New York has …
  
  
• August 2019 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Manhattan leasing activity which includes both renewals and new leases totaled 20.26 million square feet. The first half of 2019 saw 15% less activity than the second half of 2018, but this was still 12.2% above the five year average. Asking rents continued to rise to record highs, with an average of $77.82 across Manhattan and $84.51 in Midtown in large part to a boom in Downtown. Office leasing in Midtown South was flat year-over-year with 7.02 million square feet in total volume. TAMI tenants were on top here with 54% of total activity from WarnerMedia’s 1.3 million-square-foot sale-leaseback deal …
  
  
• February 2019 New York New Developments
• The top 10 office lease deals totaled 2.65 million square feet, up more than 885,000 RSF more than the previous months top 10 leases. Deutsche Bank is set to take over 1.1 million square feet of office space at 10 Columbus Circle and will leave 60 Wall Street. Millennium Management signed a lease for 300,000 square feet of space at 399 Park Avenue, relocating from 666 Fifth Avenue. Asking rents are between $73 and $90 per square foot. WeWork signed a lease for 236,000 square feet of space across seven floors at 1440 Broadway, where it will have its own …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• March 2018 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: The city is moving forward with plans to make way for 4.5 million square feet of development on Governors Island. The Trust for Governors Island held its first meeting to discuss rezoning part of the island for commercial real estate development. Beauty chain L’Occitane en Provence is relocating its Fifth Avenue store of 3,378-square-foot lease at 555 Fifth Avenue. The building had an asking retail rent of $1,100 per square foot. L’Occitane’s lease is expiring nearby at 610 Fifth Avenue. Facing high costs and lower than expected profits, retailers on some of Manhattan’s most expensive thoroughfares …
  
  
• January 2018 New York New Developments
• Co-working is coming for two of the country’s leading office building owners. Blackstone Group-owned Equity Office and Houston-based Hineshave both released RFPs looking for partners to help them gain experience in the co-working business currently dominated by WeWork. Equity Office is particularly interested in figuring out how to make tenants more interested in their Howard Hughes office complex in Los Angeles, and the company expects responses to their RFP in the next few days. WeWork has lately been seeing explosive growth and is currently valued at $20 billion. The firm has launched a gym and elementary school in recent months …
  
  
• November 2017 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: New construction starts for nonresidential projects tripled to more than $3 billion due largely to massive undertakings at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and the Moynihan Train Hall. The total dollar volume for nonresidential construction starts in New York City jumped to $3.66 billion, a 203% increase from $1.21 billion a year earlier. Most of the private air rights along the High Line are used. New York City is seeking to sell its own air rights to West Chelsea property owners for $500 per square foot. The Department of City Planning proposed a rule change …
  
  
• June 2017 New York Buildings For Sale
• New York Buildings Sold: Kobe Bussan, which operates a chain of supermarkets in Japan, sold two empty lots at 439-443 West 54th Street in Hell’s Kitchen. The buying entity is Yaus Special Clinton District LLC. WanXin Media purchased the Midtown office building and vacant lot at 7-15 West 44th Street for $68 million. WanXin plans to develop a boutique luxury hotel and Chinese cultural center which has 90,000 buildable square feet. If approved, the hotel will include 96 rooms and restaurant space in a 19-story building, seven stories taller and nearly 40,000 square feet larger than the existing building at …
  
  
• March 2017 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: The city is taking another attempt at rezoning the Garment District, a move that will likely rollback rules that require landlords to lease a portion of their building to the fashion industry. The possible rezoning is connected to the Mayor’s plans to build a new manufacturing campus in Brooklyn. The Bloomberg administration tried to rezone the Garment District in 2009, but stopped the plan due to opposition. In the fourth quarter of 2016, absorption rate was negative in all three Manhattan office submarkets: Downtown, Midtown, and Midtown South for a total net absorption of negative 277,988 …
  
  
• January 2017 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Wall Street firms with leases expiring in the near term are searching for new offices, in part because they believe President-elect Donald Trump will reduce corporate taxes and roll back regulations. Wall Street companies went from occupying 32% of Manhattan’s office stock to 25% in the last four years, during which time TAMI firms have increased from 19% to 24%. Hospitals in the city are big spenders on construction to update and expand their facilities. New York University’s new $1 billion academic building will have an all-glass facade that allows neighbors to peer into students’ lives. The university …
  
  
• December 2016 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: The city’s Human Resources Administration will renew its lease for 264,358 square feet at 109 East 16th Street and plans to spend more than $20 million on renovations. The proposed lease has a starting rent of $76.83 per square foot. As the market for land sales in Manhattan has cooled off amid a real estate slowdown, air rights trades have plummeted. The dollar volume spent on Manhattan air rights through the end of September totaled $70.69 million. That sum was down roughly 74% from the $269.78 million spent on deals that closed through the first nine months of …
  
  
• May 2016: New York New Developments
• New Developments General Growth Properties and Thor Equities' are planning to add five new floors of office space at 685 Fifth Avenue. The developers are planning to redistribute space from the lower floors to create five new floors of office space that will be added to the 20-story building, raising its height from 227 feet to 292 feet.Isaac Chetrit">Isaac Chetrit and Ray Yadidi are planning a mixed-use skyscraper of up to 80 stories in a block-long assemblage on Sixth Avenue between West 36th and 37th streets, consisting of two existing buildings and 235,000 square feet of adjacent air rights. They …
  
  
• March 2016: New York New Developments
• New Developments Joseph Beninati's Bauhouse Group filed Friday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the LLC entity that owns the 3 Sutton Place development site in Midtown. There is an upcoming foreclosure auction by Gamma's who holds more than $180 million in debt on the property at 426-432 East 58th Street. Bauhouse defaulted on nearly $129 million in loans last month that it had received from Gamma, led by Richard Kalikow, for its planned 68-story, Norman Foster-designed condo tower, also known as 3 Sutton Place. The $4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub is about to open. It will connect to …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• December 2015: New York New Developments
• New Developments AvalonBay Communities is planning a new 33-story, mixed-use residential tower at the site of the former American Bible Society located in Lincoln Square. The building will house 160 apartments. There will also be 34,000 square feet of retail space on the lower levels.Vornado Realty Trust lauded a third quarter that saw it sign seven Manhattan office leases at asking rents of over $100 per square foot. Vornado completed 43 office leasing deals totaling 509,000 square feet in the third quarter at an average starting rent of $79.80 per square foot. The total year-to-date leasing activity was nearly 1.7 …
  
  
• January 2015: New York Buildings For Sale
• New York Buildings sold Jeff Sutton and General Growth Properties are buying the Crown Building at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street for $1.75 billion. The price works out to $4,490 per square foot, which sets a new world record for the price of an entire office building. The nearly 400,000-square-foot tower includes roughly 50,000 square feet of valuable retail space with retail tenants including: Bulgari , Mikimoto, Bank of America and Piaget. Broad Street Development purchased two Noho apartment buildings for a combined $178.5 million. The properties are located at 298 and 304 Mulberry Street. The buildings house 182 apartments, …
  
  
• December 2014 NYC Buildings purchased & For to purchase
• New York Buildings sold The developer who is turning Verizon's former downtown headquarters into luxury condominiums has bought the building's 40,000-square-foot retail space for $40 million.A Developer acquired a three-story Upper West Side commercial building located at 2307 Broadway for $25.9 million. The 9,900-square-foot property, between West 83rd and 84th streets, is home to a Duane Reade store on the ground floor. There are offices on the upper floors.A Financial services firm acquired a 16-story office building at 21 Penn Plaza in Midtown from Savanna and the Feil Organization for an undisclosed price.A Canadian property investor and Chicago-based Callahan Capital …
  
  
• August 2014 New York Buildings Purchased & For Sale
• New York Buildings sold A Hong Kong-based Investment firm, bought SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Midtown for $82 million. Hidrock Realty sold the 173-room, Gene Kaufman-designed property at 25 West 37th Street for $82 million. The hotel opened last year.Madison Realty Capital has teamed with RWN Real Estate Partners to purchase a pair of buildings along Frederick Douglas Boulevard in Harlem for about $30 million.Real estate investment firm KUB Capital is in contract to acquire a one-story Soho baby stroller store and adjacent parking lot for a sum of $50 million.A White Plains, N.Y.-based real estate investment trust is in …
  
  
• June 2014 New York Buildings For Sale
• New York Buildings For Sale The Rubin Museum of Art is looking to sell a Chelsea development site that delivers more than 70,000 buildable square feet of space. The site, which is now a seven-story building, is expected to go for $60 million. The site at 115 Seventh Avenue near West 17th Street is most valuable as a condominium-and-retail project. Thus, the current structure would have to be demolished.A local investment company that has for decades owned a building which houses a drug abuse treatment facility has put the property on the market. Many in the industry think the property …
  
  
• May 2014 New York Buildings For Sale
• Buildings For Sale A West Side’s Hudson Yards development site, nearby parcel could sell more than $100 million. A nonprofit organization is selling a landmarked church for $50 million. The Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, the owner of the Church Missions House at 281 Park Avenue South, is looking to sell the century-old building to fund its services, including advocacy and management assistance for more than 200 churches and social-service groups. An affiliate of Walter & Samuels is looking to sell an Upper West Side parking garage site, which is being marketed as a potential redevelopment into condominiums. The 7,700-square-foot …
  
  
• May 2014 New York New Developments
• Major Developments Duane Reade recently vacated a location next to department store H&M; and is now on the market. The unofficial asking rent for the property is nearly $8 million per year. Commune Hotels & Resorts, a San Francisco-based joint partnership between Thompson Hotels and Joie De Vivre Hotels, has plans to develop two more hotels in Manhattan. One will operate under the Thompson Hotel brand, while the other will have a different hotel brand. The properties, for which Commune has already inked deals, are looking to open in 2016. The lineup for Westfield Group’s central shopping hall within the …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• January 2014: New York New Developments
• NYC New Developments Brookfield Property Partners has increased its cash offer to buy Brookfield Office Properties to roughly $5.1 billion. Brookfield Office's board plans to recommend to shareholders to accept this new offer. In place of cash, shareholders can receive one limited partnership unit under the offer. In September, Brookfield Property's offer was valued at $5 billion. Hotel developer Zelig Weiss is planning a new 183-room hotel to Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg. The 150,000-square-foot building will be located at 55 Wythe Avenue. Citibank signed a lease worth more than $1 billion to renew its 2.7 million-square-foot lease in a two-building …
  
  
• December 2013: New York City New Developments
• New York City New Developments The state Public Authorities Control Board gave unanimous approval to the Empire State Development Corporation's $225 million National Urban League complex in Harlem. The project will include a civil rights museum, affordable housing and commercial space. Construction at 125th Street site will begin after the expiration of tenants' leases in 2015. The businesses currently occupying the site can apply for a low-interest loan for relocation services. However, lawsuits may still delay the complex.The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is looking to increase revenue by increasing the number of retail stores at subway stations and converting small spaces …
  
  
• January 2013 NY New Developments
• NY New Developments Starchitect Norman Foster’s plans for the renovation of the New York Public Library flagship on Fifth Avenue were revealed, with features including a multi-level atrium, Bryant Park views and a teen center. Project construction will kick off this summer and will be completed in 2018. A long-stalled Midtown construction site has started construction again on a residential project at 325 Lexington Avenue. Permits for construction were renewed in July 2011. The new plans call for a ground floor restaurant and bar, 103 apartments with two full-floor penthouses, a club room and a fitness center. Construction may have …
  
  
• December 2012 New York New Developments
• New Developments 13 new hotels in the pipeline for the Lower East Side, tripling the number of hotel rooms in the neighborhood over the next few years. Four new hotels are scheduled to open, boosting the existing inventory by approximately 30 percent. Six other projects in various stages of construction and four of which are on a two-block strip along upper Orchard Street will add another 900 rooms. And three other recent proposals, a 130-room boutique hotel in the landmarked Jarmulowsky Bank building on Canal Street, a 376 room hotel/condo combination building on Chrystie Street and a Broome Street project …
  
  
• October 2012 New York New Developments
• New Developments The re-zoning of Midtown is to affect the area from Lexington to Fifth avenues and East 39th to East 57th streets. Developers can buy additional air rights from the city. Within a smaller Grand Central Sub district developers can buy from owners of landmarked properties that are under built. Argent Ventures controls nearly all of those air rights through its ownership of the Grand Central terminal. The record sale price was about $6,000 a square foot in 2008 in residential, and has now reached more than $10,000 a square foot. The very-rich have finally unleashed the liquidity that …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• August 2012 New York Buildings For Sale
• NYC Buildings For Sale One of the city’s oldest non-profit organizations has put its Gramercy Park headquarters on the block. The Xavier Society for the Blind will sell the 16,000-square-foot building at 154 East 23rd Street, starting with an asking price of $13 million. The organization is downsizing drastically because its services which provide large print and braille books and periodicals are no longer needed due to technological advances. Milstein is selling all but two of his 32 Emigrant Bank branches. Apple Bank is buying all of the branches, and their $3.2 billion in assets, except for the one at …
  
  
• July 2012 New York New Developments
• Major Developments While details are sparse, Bowery Boogie is well underway on the 65,000-square-foot building, which has been covered in scaffolding for weeks. The renovation is being carried out by Lower East Side architecture firm Studio Castellano. The city’s Economic Development Corporation wants proposals from developers who would like to build and maintain underutilized industrial plots in three New York City boroughs. These include 95,000 square feet at 2399 Watson Avenue in the Bronx’s Zerega section, 80,000 square feet in East New York, Brooklyn, 53,000 square feet in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and 40,000 square feet in Queens’ College Point Corporate …
  
  
• May 2012 New York New Developments
• New Developments Morgan Stanley just signed a lease for almost 1.2 million square feet of space at Brookfield Office Properties Inc.'s 1 New York Plaza in lower Manhattan. The bank, which currently occupies about 816,000 square feet at the building, will expand by an additional 337,000 square feet. The agreement is the largest office lease for a single building in New York since 2008. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s push to modernize Midtown East office buildings has become a legacy issue as the mayor’s reign whines to a close. Bloomberg wants to re-zone the area bounded by Third and Fifth avenues and …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• December 2011 New York New Developments
• New Developments Local 32BJ, the union representing more than 22,000 commercial building workers in New York City, voted to authorize their bargaining committee to call a strike if necessary. The union has been in contract talks with the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, since November 15th. The union opposes the landlords' proposal to establish a different wage and benefit structure for new hires, which they claim will create a two-tier system designed to push out workers with seniority. If negotiations fail by 12:01 am on Jan. 1, 2012, the union could strikeThe Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, which …
  
  
• October 2011 New York New Developments
• New Developments Time Warner is evaluating its plan to possibly move out of the Time Warner Center and consolidate its operations at new headquarters elsewhere to save costs. Time Warner moved to Columbus Circle in 2004, where it had partnered with Related Companies to build the building that is its company headquarters now. Many of its leases, including ones for more than 2 million square feet of space in Midtown, will expire as soon as 2017 and 2018. Since not many buildings could hold all of Time Warner's 6,000 employees in the city, possible alternative options would be Hudson Yards, …
  
  
• September 2011 New York New Developments
• Major NYC Developments The London-based Children's Investment Fund inked its first New York City real estate investment this month, providing $250 million in first mortgages for Macklowe Properties' condominium conversion of the luxury apartment building 737 Park Avenue in Lenox Hill. The fund, makes investments in a wide range of industries globally, and gives a portion of its profits to children's charities around the world. "It is the first direct real estate investment we have made in New York," New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is hindering federal efforts to negotiate a foreclosure settlement with Wall Street banks on …
  
  
• September 2011 NYC Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Brookfield Office Properties, could complete its massive development site between Ninth avenue and Dyer avenue and 31st and 33rd streets, called "Manhattan West," by 2017, CEO Ric Clark said. The plan calls for four buildings, two of which are 2 million square feet each and span the north and south sides of the project, with another 1 million-square-foot building occupying the southwest corner. The fourth, a smaller building whose square footage is still undetermined, will be used for retail or office space. Construction is slated to begin on the project in January, and the first of the two biggest buildings …
  
  
• August 2011 New York Buildings For Sale
• NYC Buildings For Sale 397-401 East 8th Street a development site is on the market for $5.2 million, EV Grieve. Chang's McSam Hotel Group purchased the 4,324-square-foot vacant lot, at 397-401 East 8th Street, for $4.9 million site. Chang appears to be in the midst of a selling spree -- he recently unloaded stalled hotel project sites in the Financial District and in Union Square, as well as his new Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street. A month after merging with EBSCO Publishing, library reference publisher H.W. Wilson has decided to market its former headquarters and nearby land holdings …
  
  
• July 2011 New York New Developments
• New Developments Governor Andrew Cuomo, signed a statewide property tax cap legislation, caps property tax increases at 2 percent, or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. Only a 60 percent vote in local communities override Cuomo's legislation. "We are beginning a new era in which New York will no longer be the tax capital of the nation," Cuomo said Community activists opposing the Rudin family's proposed takeover of the St. Vincent's Hospital campus in Greenwich Village dropped their court appeal without ever appearing before a judge.New York led a second consecutive month of U.S. housing price gains. Nationwide home …
  
  
• June 2011 New York New Developments
• New Developments Companies such as Boston Properties and Vornado Realty Trust are in negotiations with potential tenants and may even proceed with construction without securing leases. Boston Properties may be the first to break ground by the end of 2011. The company is finalizing negotiations to anchor a 1 million-square-foot tower at Eighth Avenue and 55th StreetRelated Companies CEO Stephen Ross said he was confident about attracting tenants for the first phase of the development, which will include four million square feet of office space. "I think we're going to surprise people," he said. "We're talking to nine tenants at …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• December 2010 New York Buildings For Sale
• New York City Buildings sold Developer Continuum Company is to put $40 million into the troubled One Madison Park residential development and finish up the project, after reaching a deal with the developer and creditors. The deal, which is contingent upon bankruptcy court approval, would fund the costs of a proposed restructuring on a loan from lender iStar. The lender gained control of the building in April, after asserting that the builder had failed to pay it $12 million in interest between October 2009 and February 2010, and owed upwards of $200 million. Larry Gluck's Stellar Management purchased the 374-unit …
  
  
• November 2010 New York New Developments
• Major Developments Despite a slight rise in the vacancy rate, which rose .5 points to 9.3 percent on top of the decline in asking rents. To illustrate the demand can be seen by a new retailer trying to elbow into the high-traffic area, an existing store agreed to relinquish its space after its lease was bought out.New York City had $4.74 billion worth of delinquent commercial property loans as of Oct. 1, down 0.6 percent from one month ago, when there was $4.77 billion outstanding. The decline can be largely accounted for by Joseph Moinian's 1775 Broadway which had been …
  
  
• August 2010 New York New Developments
• New Developments Community Board 7 voted to disapprove Extell's plans for an eight-acre Riverside Center project, unless the developer agrees to build according to some modifications. The plan for the new development that would span 59th to 61st street and West End Avenue to the edge of the West Side Highway includes five skyscrapers, at least 2,500 apartments, 210,000 square feet of retail, a hotel, a movie theater, an underground automobile service center, a new K-8 school and three acres of open space. The Alex is facing an $81.7 million foreclosure suit after Anglo Irish Bank sold the note on …
  
  
• July 2010 New York New Developments
• New York Developments The closure of St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village dominated the news, neighborhood institution succumbing to financial troubles. Despite the credit crunch, New York-area hospitals are finding ways to fund major expansion projects. Through the support of philanthropists, often from the real estate sector, there's funding to build state-of-the-art health care institutions, keeping New York a world leader in health care. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey yesterday approved an agreement with the city, under which the city will reimburse the agency up to $44 million for building underground foundations and infrastructure for a …
  
  
• June 2010 New York New Developments
• New Developments New York University may enter the public approval process for its new Silver Towers site, the crown jewel of its wildly controversial 2031 expansion plan. The biggest hurdle for the school will be gaining approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which will have final say on whether NYU can build on the landmark Bleecker Street site. The proposed building will be a "slender pinwheel tower," and is rumored to be planned for a 40-story structure. New York University dropped in on Community Board 3's zoning committee meeting and had little to say about how its 6 million-square-foot expansion …
  
  
• May 2010 New York New Developments
• New Developments Of the many players featured in the high-stakes drama unfolding at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, David Tepper, who has bought more than $800 million worth of controlling bonds at the property over the last 18 months, is proving to be one of the most volatile and polarizing. Tepper took legal action to guide the distressed property to his liking. But his attitude toward Stuyvesant Town, one of the biggest commercial-deals-gone-sour, is one of optimism. Tepper sees an opportunity for bankruptcy and restructuring, a move he believes would save millions. The city's Economic Development Corp. issued two …
  
  
• April 2010 New York New Developments
• New Developments The number of small- to mid-size medical and bio-pharmacy companies in the city has quadrupled to 120 from 2002, due to the city's recruitment and the accessibility of academic centers in the area. The Upper East Side girls' prep school has cancelled its expansion into the nearby apartment building. The Brearley School, at 610 East 83rd Street, had been angling to buy half the building at 85 East End Avenue, for use as additional teaching space but has fallen through. Extended Stay Hotels may accept a $905 million investment offer from Starwood Capital Group and associated investors in …
  
  
• March 2010 New York New Developments
• Major Developments Affordable housing programs throughout the city are facing trouble unloading units. The city has been praised across the country for its efforts to provide affordable housing to lower- and middle-income households but, while the low-income rentals continue to thrive, the ownership program is struggling, which could be seen as good since it ultimately means less foreclosures.Larry Silverstein believes his commitment to the World Trade Center redevelopment project can be measured not only by his enthusiasm, but also by his own cash. The developer recently proposed several different financing options to the Port Authority of New York & New …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• January 2010 New York New Developments
• New Developments Mort Zuckerman, chairman and CEO of Boston Properties, discussed his outlook on commercial real estate and whether the national recovery is on its way. While he was somewhat pessimistic about the industry as a whole, there are some pockets of the country that are moving toward stabilization. The industry in general is in a fairly weakened condition. In the major cities the commercial real estate is doing reasonably well but in the minor cities they are having more difficulty.Hudson River Park, the five-mile waterfront band stretching from Battery Park to 59th Street, is short on cash and may …
  
  
• December 2009 New York New Developments
• New Developments Commercial lenders did not throw out all of their standards in the recent cycle of easy credit. When developer Aby Rosen structured his $133 million loan for the acquisition and development of the Shangri-La hotel at 614 Lexington Avenue in 2007, the mortgage document included a personal guaranty to cover losses in the event of a default. Similarly, when Kent Swig negotiated $49 million in loans with Lehman Brothers Holdings to develop a hotel and condo project at 45 Broad Street in the Financial District in 2006 and 2007, the bank demanded a similar guaranty in the mortgage …
  
  
• November 2009 New York New Developments
• Major NYC Developments 11 Times Square, the city's largest office tower, remains entirely unleased more than two years after breaking ground in 2007. Some give the owner little chance of holding on to the 1 million-square-foot building without a significant debt restructuring. They cite the current weak economy, the 25 percent decline in rents, and the cost of the building, a pricey $1,100 per square foot as the reason. There are currently no signed leases for the 40-story glass commercial tower stationed across from the Port Authority terminal, which is three-quarters completed.JPMorgan Chase may hold onto its 60-story office property …
  
  
• September 2009 New York New Developments
• New Developments New building permits issued in the first five months of 2009 showed a year-over-year drop in all five boroughs for the second year in a row. Citywide, permits were down 48.5 percent from the same period last year to 720, and were down 69 percent from the first half of 2007, when the building boom was still in full force. Of the five boroughs, Manhattan saw the biggest drop from last year, with 18 building permits filed between January and May, or 72.3 percent fewer than in the same period of 2008. This number was off 71.9 percent …
  
  
• 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 2009 New York New Developments
• New Developments The Federal Reserve has few deals for the start of its program to aid the commercial real estate market. Today is the first monthly deadline for investors to apply for loans to buy new commercial mortgage-backed securities through the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. The Fed will start accepting investor requests for loans to purchase older CMBS.James Abadie, head of New York operations for construction firm Bovis Lend Lease, has resigned amid investigations of the company for alleged overbilling and bribery. Bovis is working on the September 11th Memorial and the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building.Global real …
  
  
• June 2009 New York New Developments
• New Developments Developers of a Jean Nouvel-designed skyscraper adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art have applied to build a tower seven stories taller than the original proposal unveiled two years ago was 75 stories tall. The building has been controversial, with Community Board 5 criticizing its height and bulk in a resolution in March 2008. The mixed-use project from Houston-based international developer Hines Interests will have 100 hotel rooms and 120 condominium units on the upper floors, and also include a 60,000-square-foot expansion of MoMa's galleries on the second to the fifth floors. The amount of space for the …
  
  
• January 2009 New York New Developments
• New Developments Lenders are going into bankruptcy and the sales market is disappearing, causing developers all over New York to face choices about how to ride out this down cycle.Over $400 billion in mortgages on commercial properties, including office towers and shopping malls, are to come due by the end of 2009. Even if these properties are performing well, they could go into foreclosure if mortgage holders are unable to pay off the loans. The commercial real estate market has shifted from property sales toward the purchase and sale of debt, where the loan, rather than the actual real estate, …
  
  
• December 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsRecently, banks have begun lending to one another, signifying a slight thaw in credit markets. Yet, the commercial real estate market still seems limited in its ability to get financing. This inability to line up financing has scuttled some major building and lease sales in the past few months, one such example is 17 State Street in the Financial District.About 150,000 jobs have been cut at major financial institutions, and more layoffs may be on the way. Some firms may shed an additional 5 percent of jobs this year if the market doesn't turn around. Citibank has cut 22,000 …
  
  
• December 2008 New York Buildings For Sale
• NYC Buildings For SaleThe site of the former Drake Hotel on Park Avenue between 56th and 57th streets has six bidders, down from more than 20 bidders, including Larry Silverstein, the Related Companies and Apollo Real Estate Partners. Macklowe Properties has been assembling the site over the last decade, but now is facing foreclosure on the property. At the height of the market, the land, which can support up to 600,000 square feet, could have been purchased for $1,300 a buildable foot, but now will probably sell for less than half of that price.Real estate firm George Comfort & Sons …
  
  
• November 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsIn the last few days, banks have begun lending to one another, signifying a thaw in credit markets that have been frozen for weeks. But despite those promising signs, a chill still seems to be pervading the commercial real estate market. The inability to line up financing has scuttled some major building and lease sales in the past few months, one such example is 17 State Street in the Financial District.With Lehman Brothers locked in bankruptcy, many real estate firms do not have financing to complete construction, meet lease obligations or pay vendors to complete sales, raising the prospect …
  
  
• October 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsThe Bush administration proposed granting the Treasury Department the ability to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from private firms. The proposal would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. The government also put together a plan that makes investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley holding companies, giving them access to Federal Reserve Bank of New York funds and putting them under stricter regulations. Boutique firms, like Lazard and Evercore Partners, are seizing clients and staff from fallen rivals. Nationwide, financial companies have announced 103,000 layoffs this year. Democrats proposed taxpayers could receive an …
  
  
• September 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsMacklowe Properties demolished the old Drake Hotel at Park Avenue and 56th Street but has not started building 440 Park Avenue yet. Extell still has not filed plans for its West 57th and 58th Street project, which was supposed to be a 50-story hotel-condo. Starwood Capital cleared a low-rise fur shop between the Economist building and the Buckingham Hotel; plans for a Crillon hotel haven not been realized. TriBeach has stopped work on its Eighth Avenue 37-story hotel-condo building, leaving a crater in two buildings on the lot between 46th and 47th streets. Although the plans have not been …
  
  
• August 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsOffice availability rises along with asking rents. Manhattan commercial rents increased in the year's first half even as the available for leasing increased. Average asking rents increased to $71.35 per square foot in June up from $63.46 per square foot in June, 2007. Despite an increase in leasing activity in the second quarter, the total for the first half of the year was 10.47 million square feet, a decline of about 1.5 million square feet from the same period in 2007. Some commercial landlords are raising the rents higher than ever before. L&L; Holding Company is asking for a …
  
  
• May 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsVornado Realty Trust was selected to redevelop and expand the West Side trade show facility between 51st and 54th streets on the West Side Highway. The New York City Economic Development Corporation chose Vornado and its subsidiary Merchandise Mart Properties to expand the facility. The project is to create 355,000 square feet of trade show and conference space. Broadway Partners, a New York-based real estate investor, bought several billion dollars worth of property in 2006 and 2007, at the height of the market, borrowing short-term debt that comes due in 2009. The company is considering selling some properties and …
  
  
• February 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsNew York City's office market has gained on the world's two most expensive cities, London and Hong Kong. London vaulted over Hong Kong to become the world's priciest office market with rent for Class A hitting $265 per square foot. The peak rate in New York City's Midtown reached $225 per square foot. The next most expensive U.S. office markets were San Francisco, with a rate of $110 per square foot; Boston, with a rate of $90 per square foot; and Manhattan's Downtown, with a rate of $65 per square foot. Steven Witkoff, Developer, pulled bid to develop Pier …
  
  
• January 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsNew Construction BrooklynAt 75 Flatbush Avenue, a permit to build a 21-story, 108-unit new Flatiron has been issued. The 150,000-square-foot building, which is going up Extension will be 262 feet tall.Developers of the Domino Sugar Refinery, a historic landmark, will be part of an ambitious $1.2 billion, 10-year residential development project.Major Market News Columbia Expansion Approved. The City Council voted to rezone a 35-acre section of Harlem, allowing Columbia University's $7 billion expansion. Columbia plans to expand onto 17 of the rezoned acres, bounded by Broadway, Riverside Drive, West 129th Street and West 133rd Street.The Federal Reserve's proposal to …