Greenwich, Connecticut-based Starwood Capital has brought in Blackstone as a partner to save its investment in the 1.7-million-square-foot Pacific Shores Center office complex in Redwood City, Calif. The partners are now looking for a $275 million mortgage to get rid of the property’s overdue debt. Read More
The Royal Bank of Scotland has its eye on a $70 million mortgage on a fully-leased office complex in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx. Read More
It is very obvious that we are approaching election season in New York, as the fundraisers and calls from local politicians are starting to come with greater frequency.
Given the budget deficits that New York is facing, both at the city and state level, one of the questions I always ask politicians looking for donations is what three specific line items in the city budget do they believe could withstand cutbacks. I have never received a straightforward answer to this question and most of the time the default position from the politician is, “We must work hard to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.” Read More
When Nechama Levy began her search for retail space last July, she took advantage of years of experience as a bicycle shop employee to inform her real estate decisions, and then Colliers International brokers Charles Goldberg and Hank Widmaier sealed the deal at 1078 Fulton Street.
Beside ample basement space, Ms. Levy also considered floor plates large enough to install what she described as ergonomically correct racks and other bicycle-specific design flourishes. After the jump, Geoffrey Prisco of Brutus Park Architecture and Ms. Levy review the floor plans with The Commercial Observer and discuss what, exactly, convinced the first-time business owner to open her 5,800-square-foot shop, Bicycle Roots, in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Read More
Among the most sought-out asset classes of investments are multi-family rental properties. Two of the most active lenders for this asset class were government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of whom increased their multi-family lending in 2011 to $44.7 billion, marking double-digit increases. Read More
Silence is not always golden. In commercial leasing the “standard” form is anything but, and the typical verbiage we see (leaving aside issues of poor grammar and punctuation) is far from transparent. In fact, to do the right thing by our clients, savvy leasing professionals must also bring a laser-like focus on those “silent” lease issues—the ones lurking beneath the superficial form language—that are traps for the unwary and likely to have a substantial economic impact on landlord and tenant above and beyond a simple base rent calculation. Read More
Last week, the statistic was all about sublet availability and its recent improvement. This week we turn to direct availability, or the space marketed directly by the landlord of building. Read More
The Federal Open Market Committee recommitted to its near-zero interest rate policy at its meeting in late January. Building on last summer’s announcement of a specific time horizon for its current level of accommodation, the committee pushed the expected date for tightening from next year to late 2014.
Why the change? Based on the Fed’s current assessment, economic and financial market conditions warrant a historically low Fed Funds target rate for at least another two years. The implications for commercial real estate are difficult to overstate given the critical role that low interest rates have played in the sector’s recovery. Read More
As we have seen, year after year, in the New York City investment sales market, multi-family apartment buildings is the asset class that is always in the highest demand. The inherent upside potential within these properties, based on artificially low rents created by rent regulation, keeps investors flocking to this product type and makes regulated apartment buildings the easiest property type to finance. Read More
