Economic Development Corporation

• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …