After handling its leasing at 535 and 545 Fifth Avenue internally, The Moinian Group has tapped a Cushman & Wakefield team as the exclusive leasing agent for both buildings, The Commercial Observer has learned.
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Massey Knakal executives predict that the sales market for office buildings and apartment properties will pick up considerably in 2012, due in large part to a combination of record low interest rates and widespread expectations that the capital gains tax rate will rise next year.
“We’re going to see a natural regression in 2012 back to the norms,” said Robert Knakal, Massey Knakal's chairman, noting that the volume of properties sold in the city has been below the historical average since the recession and is likely to bounce back. “The potential increase in capital gains that could take place in 2013 [is a big driver]. We saw a significant spike in sales volume in 2010 for the very same reason.”
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Still, things are not changing so much. As previously, pretentiously noted, Smith Street it ain't, nor is it going to be. This is still a discount strip. From H&M to Target, the Gap to the almost-Filene's, the newcomers have been far from high end—not counting the hamburgers. For further proof of the trend toward the same, welcome Century 21 to the neighborhood. Read More
Two years ago this month, CBRE tristate chief executive Mary Ann Tighe rattled cages when the Real Estate Board of New York named her its first female chairwoman in the 116-year-old organization’s history. During those 24 months, the former TV executive—yes, she helped launch cable channel A&E—helped renew the 421a tax exemption program, oversaw passage of the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act, and shepherded a series of projects meant to fuel construction across New York. Throughout those lobbying efforts, she managed to tally what she described as the second-most successful year of leasing in her career. Last week, REBNY’s first lady spoke to The Commercial Observer about her achievements thus far as chairwoman, the complications behind her deals for Condé Nast, Coach and Young & Rubicam, and what to expect at this year’s gala.
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Since 1986, Steven Spinola has served as president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the powerful lobbying arm that he has captained through two recessions, property tax reductions and a series of battles against the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Commercial Observer spoke to Mr. Spinola, 63, about what he learned in 2011, new battles for the New Year, his weakness for skiing and whether he’d rather be drinking with Robert Moses or Jane Jacobs. Hint: His answer probably won’t surprise anybody.
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Among the reasons New York has the finest skyline in the world—consider that a statement of fact, not opinion—is not simply the skyscrapers bounding up the island of Manhattan but also their unusual arrangement. Like a great mountain range, the city is arrayed around the twin peaks of Downtown and Midtown.
Perhaps the appeal is Freudian.
It has long been believed that New Yorkers could thank God for their unusual agglomeration of buildings (or, for those on the Upper West Side not believing in His good work, eons of geological development). It turns out that Manhattan has a bedrock unusually suited to the construction of very tall buildings, in many cases just a few meters below the surface. But that solid land drops away in the gooey middle of the island, long limiting the heights of buildings in the city.
Or so the aphocraphists have been passing down for decades, at least since noted geologist Christopher J. Schuberth released his seminal The Geology of New York City and Environs in 1968. Therein, he posited his belief in a correlation between bedrock and big buildings, and like the Empire State Building, it has stood the test of time. But like a bad retaining wall, it all came tumbling down last month. Read More
From the moment you walk through the doors of 757 Third Avenue, you know the building is different from the average, anonymous East Side office tower.
One of the lesser works of the monolithic Emery Roth & Sons—they of GM and Look and Pan Am buildings fame—757 Third is the typical wedding-cake office building. A banded obsidian glass curtain wall with those I-beam mullions, it is the sentinel we’ve seen before, cast ever so slightly anew in a thousand business districts the world over. Seagrams lite with a splash of Chase Manhattan.
That is why walking into, or really out of, 757 Third is such a dramatic experience. The 28-story building may have the nicest revolving doors in the entire city. Set into two curving, scythelike glass panels, the building’s egress does not really have an edge, and so when stepping out onto the street through those spinning doors, it is as though the building suddenly disappears. You have left the warm confines of this sleek building and are back on the cold New York City street. You might even stop to gasp at the trick if the door were not coming up behind you, about to deliver a smack in the toosh. Read More
Conde Nast has reportedly agreed to take on an additional 133,000 square feet of office space at 1 World Trade Center, adding to the 1.05 million it has already committed to at the yet-to-be-completed skyscraper, the New York Post reported.
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Whether it’s revitalizing an old property with hip new tenants, or reassuring an established firm that its current address is the right fit, David E. Green showcases the kind of commercial real estate savvy that has earned him trust among an eclectic portfolio of clients.
Mr. Green’s peers recognize it, too, and that’s why the Cushman & Wakefield executive director has been named this year’s Real Estate Board of New York “Young Real Estate Man of the Year” recipient.
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It’s not often a developer can affect the lexicon, but this year Douglas Durst and the Durst Organization have helped do just that.
For the past 10 years, the giant hole next to West Street has been referred to as Ground Zero, a bitter reminder of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
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Simon Ziff is a classic example of the small-town boy done good in the big city.
Born in Philipsburgh, Pa., near Penn State University, the Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group president grew up around his grandfather’s clothing store. He studied finance at State College and everyone figured he’d stay in the area because everyone else did. Mr. Ziff, however, had bigger plans.
“Real estate was a way to get to either of the big cities—Pittsburgh and Philadelphia,” he said.
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As the members of REBNY gather together this week, many will congratulate themselves on a fine year for leasing activity, despite the difficult global economy and the Beltway disaster otherwise known as the U.S. Congress.
All things considered, it was a decent year “leasing-wise” with activity from a wide variety of industries—even financial services, which seemed to always be teetering on the edge due to new regulations (still awaited) and mass layoffs (just beginning).
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On a family trip to Miami when Pamela Liebman was 4, what interested her the most were not the white sand beaches or the clear blue water, but the buildings. “What are those?” asked the future chief executive of the Corcoran Group, Manhattan’s top real estate brokerage firm.
“That’s a condominium,” her mother replied. She said she spent the rest of the trip rolling the word “condominium” off her tongue.
“I think I was predestined to go into real estate,” she said. Years later, when visiting her realtor aunt in Beverly Hills, she said the interest still hadn’t flagged. All the other kids wanted to swim the pool. “I just wanted to go look at the houses,” she said.
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Manhattan real estate moguls talk about his “Solomonic wisdom,” according to The New York Times.
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called him the “dean of damage control.” His public relations firm, Rubenstein Associates, once simultaneously represented both Leona Helmsley and Donald Trump.
So it’s no exaggeration to say that nothing of importance happens in New York City without somehow involving Howard J. Rubenstein.
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Real estate was never supposed to be a career for Gerard Schumm.
The executive vice president of RFR Realty always wanted to be a musician, a drummer to be exact. But while going to St. Francis College, he asked his father, who worked in the real estate game, to help him find a day job until the record companies came banging at his door.
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