Groups

• February 2024 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the parent company of Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and jewelry designer Tiffany & Co., is in negotiations to acquire 745 Fifth Avenue, a 35-story tower. LVMH is competing against other bidders for the property. SL Green acquired 2 Herald Square leasehold for next to nothing; it had completed a deal to acquire a 95% stake in the leasehold at 2 Herald Square: SL Green paid $7 million to settle the property’s $182.5 million mortgage. The City Comptroller is suing Lloyd Goldman’s development company over allegations that it failed to pay the wages required …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• November 2023 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: New York City building owners commercial janitorial workers’ union contract expires at year’s end. Wages and health benefits will play prominently into the labor fight. Hotel occupancy in Times Square and Midtown West hit 88%, a post-pandemic high. The average daily room rate is up more than 10% from last year. Almost a quarter of the $1.9 billion in closed hotel sales in Manhattan this year have come to Times Square. Industrial Space in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens had an asking rent of $26.02 per square foot in the third quarter. New York Community Bank …
  
  
• July 2021 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Life sciences leasing in New York leased 257,000 square feet, far above the 156,000 square feet rented in all of 2020. The city will throw at least another $500 million into life sciences development, bringing total investment up to $1 billion and signaling more expansion to come. A group of banks led by Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs provided $3 billion in refinancing for SL Green’s One Vanderbilt. SL Green Realty Corp, the National Pension Service of Korea and Hines Interests own the 67-story skyscraper. The refinancing will pay off $1.75 billion in construction debt on the property. …
  
  
• February 2021 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments Real estate leaders in New York have admitted that there’s a long road ahead before things return to normal or a new normal. WeWork recently exited four locations in Midtown, Soho and the Meatpacking District. Knotel declared bankruptcy. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing a plan to get employees back in office buildings and office landlords are on board. Cuomo announced that rapid testing would be used in state-designated orange zones to open office buildings, along with restaurants and theaters. He said that major commercial operators with space totaling more than 100 million square feet have already …
  
  
• June 2020 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a package of Covid-19 relief bills, including one that temporarily bars landlords from going after restaurants and store owners’ personal assets. Attempting to enforce such provisions constitutes harassment under the measure. New York state’s coronavirus foreclosure ban does not apply to mezzanine loans. The last observation deck at the Chrysler Building closed in 1945 and will now be getting a new one. RFR Realty received unanimous approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission for the new deck on the terraces that frame the 61st floor of the 77-floor tower. They …
  
  
• January 2020 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: New York City’s hotel inventory includes 113 new developments to open in the next few years, with just over half located outside Manhattan. New York’s hotel inventory will reach 144,000 rooms by the end of 2021 up 65% from the 87,000 rooms the city had in 2010. Chang has filed plans for his biggest hotel yet. The 34-story, 974-room development at 150 West 48th Street. Michael Bloomberg is moving his presidential campaign headquarters from the Upper East Side to Times Square. The new headquarters are located at 229 West 43rd Street, 8th floor. New York City will end …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• September 2019 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Market Overview: Midtown office leasing continued to slow, totaling just under 1 million square feet, down 21% from the month before and 26% year-over-year. The availability rate stayed flat at 10.6% while average asking rent rose to $88.20. Leasing activity in Midtown South slowed with 610,000 square feet in leases signed, a 20% decline from last month. The availability rate ticked down to 10%, and the average asking rent fell to $83.12 per square foot. Lower Manhattan office leasing jumped to 890,000 square feet, nearly double the month prior, making the first half of 2019 the submarket’s strongest half-year since …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• April 2018 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: An Upper East Side retail site that has been vacant for more than two years will soon be Morton Williams. A curated version of the supermarket is coming to 1251 Third Avenue, the former site of a Talbot’s. The grocery store chain has taken 13,000 square feet across two floors, with an asking rent of $2 million per year. Chinese investment in the United States’ commercial real estate has plummeted by 55% last year, dropping from $16.2 billion in 2016 to $7.3 billion in 2017. Purplebricks, a London-based discount brokerage, received $177 million equity investment from …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• April 2017 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments New York comes in as the 6th most expensive office market in the world. Two major developments are in the Gansevoort Market Historic District and are moving ahead. Restoration Hardware’s proposed development at 55 Gansevoort Street was approved. The project will bring a 14-room guesthouse. Restoration Hardware agreed to lower the height of a rooftop and to hide a planned windscreen behind a fiberglass cornice. Nearby, developers are working on turning five buildings between Washington Street and Ninth Avenue into an 111,000-square-foot commercial development. The interim head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art wants to slow …
  
  
• November 2016 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: Construction spending in New York City is expected to soar to $127.5 billion by the end of 2018, showing that the building boom still has legs. Predictions that spending will reach $43.1 billion in 2016, a 26% increase from 2015’s construction spending in 2017 is projected to reach $42.1 billion and then $42.3 billion in 2018. Non-residential construction of $17 billion projected in 2016, a 27% increase from last year. Office construction accounts for 20 million square feet of new space will be added over the next five years, much of it in Hudson Yards. Tishman …
  
  
• April 2015: New York Buildings For Sale
• New York Buildings sold Chinese insurance company Groups bought the Waldorf Astoria for nearly $2 billion. It was the largest ever Chinese investment in a single Manhattan property and that was negotiated chairman Wu Xiaohui to chairman Jonathan Gray head of real estate for Blackstone.Maddd Equities bought the school component of a 14-story Upper East Side building for $24.5 million. The school is located inside a 181,700-square-foot building at 1225-1239 Second Avenue, located between East 64th and 65th streets. The Grace Institute had owned the roughly 45,200-square-foot space since 1963.David Berley purchased 160-162 Lexington for $24.5 million from Lexington Landmark …
  
  
• June 2014 New York New Developments
• Major Developments The South Bronx has had very few lodging destinations since the luxury Concourse Plaza Hotel at 161st Street and Grand Concourse closed in 1974. But now, with the opening of the luxury boutique Opera House Hotel at 436 East 149th Street last summer and the Umbrella Hotel looking to open 681 Elton Avenue this fall, the area’s hotel industry seems to be on the rebound.The Mayor’s administration has suggested rezoning a five-block stretch around Grand Central Terminal to allow for the construction of SL Green’s planned 65-story tower project at 1 Vanderbilt. De Blasio’s plan looks to partly …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• March 2014 New York New Developments
• New Developments 68 Charlton Street Extell Development has submitted plans for a 22-story residential building in Hudson Square that would include the neighborhood its first affordable housing.Flushing Commons. Architect Perkins Eastman announced the master plan. Phase one will have 150 residential units and 220,000 square feet of office space, along with 1,600 parking spaces. Phase two will have 450 residential units and 280,000 square feet of commercial space, a 62,000-square-foot YMCA and an additional 15,000 square feet for community facilities. There will also be A 1.5-acre town square, built around a central fountain plaza.Phase one is aiming for an April …
  
  
• February 2014 New York New Developments
• New Developments A Brooklyn fashion networking company away is moving into Manhattan. Manufacture NYC, a program that gives budding designers access to industrial sewing machines and design software, conducted an exhaustive search for a budget-friendly spot in Brooklyn before finally giving up and settling on a space in Manhattan’s Garment District. 7-Eleven is trying to gain acceptance in Manhattan. Since entering Manhattan in 2011 the number of locations has quadrupled from eight to 37 stores.Hospitals are increasingly opening full-service walk-in clinics in an effort to reduce inpatient costs. As a result, outpatient medical facilities are cropping up throughout the city. …
  
  
• August 2013: New York New Developments
• New York New Developments Brookfield Office Properties has begun construction of a bridge 120,000 square feet for its Manhattan West project. Brookfield will be the first platform on Amtrak rail yards between ninth and 12th avenues. Time Warner has agreed in principle to move in 80-story skyscraper related companies planned for yards at the 10th Avenue and West 33rd Street, capping weeks of speculation on the movement of the media company in Hudson Yards, IMG Worldwide extend its lease at 304 Park Avenue South. And will now occupy 72,080 square feet. The lease also increased its initial term of 10 …
  
  
• May 2013: NYC New Developments
• NYC New Developments Waterman Interests has signed a new 75-year deal with Benenson Capital Partners for the master lease at 400 Park Avenue. The Benenson family has owned the East 54th Street site since 1971. In 2010, Waterman along with some institutional investors paid $35 million to RFR Realty for the leasehold on the 270,000-square-foot property. At the time, the leasehold had 17 years remaining. Manhattan hotels have been popping up especially in the area around 29th Street. . Now there are nearly a dozen hotels clustered on and around 29th Street, including the trendy Ace Hotel, which opened in …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• May 2012 New York Buildings For Sale
• New York Buildings sold Jamestown Properties purchased 325 Hudson Street the expected price to be about $500 per square foot, or around $120 million.Hidrock Realty purchased the vacant lot at 133 Greenwich Street for $27.9 million in a joint venture with Robert Finvarb Companies, and will develop a hotel there. The joint venture will develop a 28-floor, 300-room hotel at an estimated cost of $70 million. The new inn, between West and Washington streets in Lower Manhattan, should be open for business in early 2015. A group of parcels known as the Bedford portfolio, along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, has …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• March 2012 New York New Developments
• New Developments There are thousands of acres of rooftop space in New York City where growing farm operations are looking to expand. Groups such as Gotham Greens, Brooklyn Grange and BrightFarms are looking for elevated space where they can grow crops to sell to local restaurants and supermarketsSheldon Solow outdueled his West 57th Street rival and acquired an office building on the block at a near record price. Solow, bid $120 million for 12 West 57th Street to beat out One57 developer Gary Barnett, president of Extell Development, for the 12-story property. The price works out to more than $1,400 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 Buildings For Sale
• NYC Buildings For Sale The Apthorp JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are two of the banks among the final candidates that bid for parts of $9.65 billion in U.S. property loans owned by Anglo Irish Bank. The lenders are interested in acquiring pieces of the $4.52 billion of performing loans. Investor groups led by private-equity firms Blackstone Group, together with Deutsche Bank, and Lone Star Funds also submitted offers for parts of the portfolio, which includes $5.13 billion of subperforming and non-performing debt. Anglo Irish aims to sell off its loans after it was seized by the Irish government in …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• April 2011 New York New Developments
• Major Trends Bruce Ratner wants to construct the world's tallest prefabricated structure at the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn, according to the New York Times. The 34-story proposed tower would include 400 affordable apartment units, fulfilling a promise Ratner made when he took over the site. The annual rate of building permits issued for new privately-owned U.S. housing units fell by another 8.2 percent in February to a record-low 517,000, according to the latest data from the Commerce Department, backing up analysts' predictions that a sustained recovery in the housing market is still elusive. The permitting rate, which is indicative …
  
  
• April 2011 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Manhattan's office leasing market is on pace for its best year ever after February brought some 3 million square feet worth of deals,. That's far above the nine-year monthly average of 1.9 million square feet of office leases. The banner month also comes on the heels of a busy January, when 2.6 million square feet were snapped up in Manhattan office lease transactionsManhattan townhouses see 2010 sales uptickBoth the single-family and multi-family Manhattan townhouse markets showed signs of improvement last year, according to the Corcoran Group, which released its first annual Townhouse Report today. In the single-family market, the number …
  
  
• April 2011 New York Buildings For Sale
• New York Buildings sold Host Hotels & Resorts closed on the $313.5 million sale of the New York Helmsley Hotel, which will be reflagged under the Westin Hotels & Resorts brand in mid-2012 after an extensive renovation. Host Hotels, will renovate the hotel, at 212 East 42nd Street, with a complete overhaul of its 775 guest rooms as well as a meeting space upgrade.Dune Real Estate Partners has agreed to pay $190 million for Anglo Irish Bank's mortgage loan on the embattled Mark Hotel on the Upper East Side. The note, which had a face value of around $300 million, …
  
  
• March 2011 New York New Developments
• Major Trends The laws that cap rent increases on 1 million city apartments expire in June, and landlord groups, tenant advocates and politicians all agree that they should be extended. Last time the laws were up for a renewal, in 2003, Senate Republicans threatened to let them expire and ended up forcing the Democrats to accept a simple renewal. Now the Democrats think they have a better chance of getting a good deal for tenants. The real estate industry is desperate to renew a tax break known as 421-a, which spurs new apartment building development, and Sheldon Silver believes developers …
  
  
• October 2010 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Overall asking rent for Manhattan office space climbed slightly to $47.73 per square foot in August, up from $47.57 per square foot in July. The vacancy rate in Manhattan also showed modest improvement, dropping gradually month-over-month to 13.4 percent, from 13.7 percent. Compared to August 2009, vacancy was down .5 percent. Of all the boroughs prime office neighborhoods, the Downtown market struggled the most showing its slowest leasing momentum since September 2009, as the vacancy rate remained steady at 14.3 percent. Midtown, however, showed promise: 10.55 million square feet has been leased so far this year, up 56 percent from …
  
  
• October 2010 New York New Developments
• Major Developments The number of retail condominiums for sale in the city is on the rise, with this year's supply already up 30 percent as developers have adjusted to the new economic landscape. Next year, there will be more going through the pipeline once the foreclosures and loans are settled. While an influx of new retail space coming on the market could test the recovery as pent-up demand diminishes, things are, so far, looking good for developers. The first phase of the Second Avenue Subway is running two years behind schedule and is set to run $420 million over budget. …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• January 2010 New York Buildings For Sale
• Manhattan Buildings sold SL Green recently purchased the construction loan on Harry Macklowe's 510 Madison Avenue, a major step toward taking control of the new 350,000-square-foot office tower. The $185 million in outstanding debt was purchased from Union Labor Life Insurance for $170 million. Now, SL Green will have to fund $30 million in unfinished work, plus foot a $30 to $40 million bill for a reserve for tenant improvement allowances and brokers' commissions. The building's only tenants so far are investment firm Jay Goldman and watch retailer Tourneau, both of which are embroiled in battles to renege on their …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• October 2009 New York New Developments
• Major Developments Stalled construction projects are not having much of a psychological impact on the city. Despite an increasing number of delayed projects, including 250 West 55th Street, 99 Church Street and Solow's First Avenue project, any psychological effects are likely to be short-lived, because the projects will be completed eventually. Large banks are only about halfway done with their commercial real estate losses. The U.S. commercial real estate losses could reach 10 or 15 percent of loans in this cycle. Banks with retail and office loans face the highest risk.The Plaza hotel is on tough times. The building's lower …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• 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 …
  
  
• July 2008 New York New Developments
• New DevelopmentsThe city has reached a deal with a developer that will bring schools to a mixed-use development planned for Midtown East. With financing from New York City Educational Construction Fund, the World Wide Group will build a new elementary school and a new high school that would replace the High School for Art and Design. In exchange, the city will lease the developer a 1.5-acre site at East 57th Street and Second Avenue. World Wide plans to build 200,000 square feet of retail and 488,000 square feet of residential space. Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a plan to rejuvenate the …
  
  
• December 2007 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Demand for Manhattan office space exceeds the pace of new construction. As a result office vacancy rates continue to decline and rental rates continue their upward climb. New DevelopmentsThe Federal government has approved $1.3 billion for the Second Avenue subway's first phase. The first phase is expected to cost more than $4 billion and is scheduled to open in 2014. A new television transmission may make unnecessary the 408-foot spire planned to broadcast tower on of roof the Freedom Tower. If not built, the tower will be reduced from its symbolic 1,776 feet to 1,368 feet tall, the height of …
  
  
• September 2007 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Tightening credit may mean the end of the acquisition frenzy and trouble for buyers of recent deals who have not locked in long term financing.Summerset Partners who last month announced it was acquiring 450 Park Avenue for $1,589/RSF. Now, the firm is struggling to close the $510 million deal, because of the rising cost of debt and requirements for more equity. The same is true for all developers such as Macklow who recently completed the $7 billion acquisition of several Manhattan skyscrapers from the The Blackstone Group and an Israeli investment group, who just bought the Lipstick Building at 885 …