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Daniel Geiger

By Daniel Geiger 10/10/12 11:32am

Big Data

Dave Sabey

Enter the Matrix: High-Tech, High-Rise Data Farm Puts Down Roots in Lower Manhattan

Perhaps in the future, silver-legged secretaries will answer the phones, stainless-steel fingers will clack away at keyboards, and Manhattan’s workforce will have been completely supplanted by robotic counterparts who work faster, smarter, longer and cheaper than their human predecessors.

For now, though, most buildings are still stocked with actual flesh-and-blood employees who take long breaks, complain and sometimes confuse their assigned tasks with internet shopping.

The property at 375 Pearl Street, a towering skyscraper in Lower Manhattan at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, won’t be one of them. After buying the building out of foreclosure last year, its developer is taking a brave leap into the future. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 9/11/12 8:00pm

Brooklyn Legal

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes. (Getty Images)

The Prosecutor Plays Defense: Can D.A. Hynes Have It Both Ways on Hasidic Molesters?

On a steamy night on the corner of a Bedford-Stuyvesant block in late August, District Attorney Charles Hynes stood waiting for the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Though he has fought crime in the borough for decades, Mr. Hynes, who is in his sixth term as the Brooklyn district attorney, looked slightly out of place loitering on a dark patch of sidewalk in front of a dicey-looking housing project near midnight.

Well into his 70s, Mr. Hynes is grandfatherly in appearance, white-haired and slightly hunched. He wore a bright blue checkered shirt, cleanly pressed, with an open collar. He waited patiently, a sizable police detail nearby, until Rev. Sharpton arrived, 20 minutes late, in a chauffeured black Navigator. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 4/10/12 8:00am

Lawsuits

Ben Herbst

Dirty Deeds: In Borough Park, the Case of the Nudnik Neighbor

The man on the other end of the intercom had warned me he was going to call the police. When he said it, The Observer knew he didn’t mean the kind that would pull up to the curb in a blue and white squad car with the letters NYPD stenciled on the door. This was Borough Park, after all.

The neighborhood, a stronghold of the city’s Hasidic community, has its own ambulance corps, rabbinical courts and civilian security squad, the Shomrim. The Observer had been drifting around the area, a stranger in a strange land, and given our mission, we weren’t surprised to see a neighborhood enforcer bounding towards us. He had a huge belly that parted his suspenders, a sandy beard and noticeably thick hands. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 3/05/12 8:00am

57 West 57th Street

Fast Office Set to Make Fast Prebuilts

Prebuilt offices, prepared spaces that allow tenants to quickly take occupany in a building, are about to get even quicker.

Michael Cohen, CEO of the real estate services firm Colliers International, is using a new type of office installation system called Fast Office at 57 West 57th Street, a 21-story, 170,000 square foot office tower that Mr. Cohen owns.

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By Daniel Geiger 3/02/12 4:55pm

Barry Gosin

BGC Extends Commission Recoup to Grubb Brokers Who Stay

BGC Partners is offering to pay Grubb & Ellis brokers commissions they are owed if they remain with the company as it wends its way through bankruptcy, sources with knowledge of the firm told The Commercial Observer.

When Grubb & Ellis filed for Chapter 11 almost two weeks ago, it thrust brokers there who are due a commission check in line with the company’s other creditors, a position that has made it uncertain who, if anyone, will be paid.

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By Daniel Geiger 3/02/12 11:31am

16 West 36th Street

Leasehold for 16 West 36th Street Sold

The leasehold on 16 West 36th Street, a roughly 65,000 square foot office building, has been sold for $8.2 million.

NorthEnd Equities, an investment company run by investor Charles Herzka, will acquire the 12-story building from a group called Beach Plaza Associates.

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By Daniel Geiger 3/02/12 9:30am

Investment Sales 2012

Richard Baxter. (Illustration by Joao Maio Pinto)

Jones Lang LaSalle’s Richard Baxter on 75 Rockefeller Plaza and 10 East 53rd

The investment sales market, most brokers agree, has been heating up over the past 12 months. Approximately $25.8 billion in commercial properties changed hands last year, a turnaround that represented an 88 percent increase over 2010. But while the positive uptick is easily verifiable, what happens next for Manhattan’s investment sales market is still up in the air.

Accordingly, The Commercial Observer set out to speak with the real estate industry’s most accomplished capital markets and sales practitioners to learn what’s in store for 2012. Over the next several days, we’ll post interviews with heavy hitters like Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan of CBRE, J.D. Parker of Marcus & Millichap, Woody Heller of Studley and Peter Hausperg of Eastern Consolidated. But, first, after the jump, none other than Richard Baxter of Jones Lang LaSalle.

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By Daniel Geiger 3/01/12 10:15am

The Lobby

James Wacht.

Lee & Associates Nabs Four New Hires

The burgeoning brokerage Lee & Associates is adding more brokers, including another executive from the bankrupt real estate services company Grubb & Ellis, executives at the firm revealed.

Robert Kunikoff, a retail leasing executive at Grubb & Ellis, will be moving over to Lee & Associates starting this week the executives said. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 3/01/12 9:42am

Big Real Estate

Greetings from Cannes.

What’s MIPIM? In NYC, Nobody Knows.

It’s not just the biggest real estate conference no one has heard of. It’s the biggest real estate conference period. And, yes, most real estate professionals, at least in New York, haven’t heard of it.

Next week 19,000 guests from 90 countries will descend on Cannes, France, for MIPIM, a four-day event that roughly translates as “International Market for Real Estate Professionals” featuring speaking panels and networking opportunities that allow developers to shop major new projects to prospective tenants and investors. Read More