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Tom Acitelli

By Jotham Sederstrom 9/06/11 4:00pm

Upscale Footwear Walks Into 807 Washington

Fashionable club-goers and maybe even a few hog butchers will be able to navigate the brick roads of the meatpacking district in style now that Nicholas Kirkwood, the upscale designer footwear brand has inked a 1,572-square-foot retail deal at 807 Washington Street.

Located between Gansevoort and Horatio streets, the ground-floor boutique is scheduled to open by winter of 2012, broker said. As with most space—office and retail alike—asking prices have risen in the area since the High Line park opened two years ago, although specific prices at 807 Washington Street were not immediately available. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 9/06/11 11:55am

the sit-down

Trumpeting Change on Third

Since 2009, Gerard Nocera, Michael Reid and John Monaco have helmed Herald Square Properties, an investment and operating company that has, since launching, provided asset management services for more than 800,000 square feet of office properties in Manhattan. The former COO of SL Green, Mr. Nocera, 54, spoke about the revitalization program at the Lipstick Building at 885 Third Avenue and the company’s efforts to acquire new property. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 9/06/11 9:36am

power broker

The Recycler

In its heyday, the manufacturing plant in Garden City, Long Island, housed laboratories for DuPont Pharmaceuticals before it went on to harbor chemists with a competing drug maker, Bristol Myers Squibb. But by 2004, the 188,500-square-foot complex of two buildings on Stewart Avenue and Endo Boulevard—a street named for the pharmaceutical firm that originally occupied the plant in 1964—had become a casualty of new compliancy standards by the F.D.A. In other words, the cost of upgrading the complex to conform was no longer in the best interest of the owner or even Bristol Myers Squibb, which relocated.

Enter Joe Farkas, a former CB Richard Ellis broker who, as president of the Jericho-based Metropolitan Realty Associates, has mined real estate gold from older assets, like the Garden City site, that have outlived their original use. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 9/02/11 6:40pm

Elsewhere

The Closing: Super-Late Labor Day Weekend Edition

Perhaps the most articulate review ever of a carousel: Jean Nouvel’s design for Jane Walentas. [NY Times]

It’s First Avenue’s moment to shine because Second Avenue’s so terrible right about now. [Journal]

Five rats go after Jay-Z near Madison Square Park. [Curbed NY]

The $90 million mansion on East 80th Street is off the rental market and, we assume, headed for a mighty, mighty price-chop. [Curbed NY]

Catholic priests sell to Jewish retirement home in Riverdale… there’s a walks-into-a-bar joke here somewhere. [Daily News]

The story of 5 Franklin Place and its foreclosure. [NY Times]

‘Stoner checks in on new studios rising at Steiner. [Brownstoner]

The Earl of Sandwich is going to eat New York City. [Crain's]

Housekeeping note: We will be blogging only sporadically on Monday. See you in the autumn.

By Tom Acitelli 8/29/11 8:56am

Book Review

Explaining All the Italian-Americans in New York

In November 1853, a 46-year-old candle-maker set sail from Staten Island for Europe, where he had been one of the most famous soldiers since the fall of Napoleon 40 years before. Giuseppe Garibaldi was already one-half on his way to becoming “the Hero of Two Worlds” of legend, as he had the previous decade fought for Uruguayan independence in South America. His fighting on behalf of his native soil, however, had not gone so spectacularly. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 8/26/11 12:59pm

Here Come the Stories of the Hurricane

Never Mind the Floods, What About Our Next Bottle? (Updated)

“Pretty much anything they can get their hands on,” said Matt Barclay at Park Slope’s Bierkraft in answer to The Observer‘s question about what types of beer people were picking up in anticipation of Hurricane Irene.

The rush is, indeed, on at some of the city’s tonier beer and wine stores, as news of the storm’s approach rises toward an ursine belch. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 8/26/11 8:54am

Elsewhere

On the Market: Elderly C Train; $35K Tribeca Townhouse; Refi Fallout; Hurricane Irene

Storm of some sort scheduled to arrive this weekend. [NY Times]

But, seriously, subways and buses could be cut starting Saturday. G train riders will not notice. [Journal]

Older than sin, the C train’s cars will just have to keep running. [NY Times]

Flatiron shopping gets hip. [DNAinfo]

Feds to legally complain about treatment of workers at the Boathouse. [NY Times]

Refi plans could rattle the mortgage bond markets. Can’t have that. [Journal]

Long Island City… gentrification… blah blah blah. [Daily News]

Chelsea flea market staying open, actually. [DNAinfo]

Lawyer who specializes in suing other lawyers renting out Tribeca townhouse for $35K a month. [Daily News]

Leave the Prospect Park West Bike Lane Alone already! [BK Paper]

By Tom Acitelli 8/25/11 5:14pm

Commercial Stat of the Week

Where Manhattan’s Sublet Availability Is Headed

Cassidy Turley’s research guru Robert Sammons divines the signs… Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 8/25/11 2:33pm

lease beat

W&H Fills Last Retail Space at 1350 Broadway

For caffeine guzzlers unable to find one of the 17,000 Starbucks currently operating on, oh, every other block across 50 countries, the search just got a little easier.

Indeed, W&H Properties inked a 10-year, 1,189-square-foot lease for the Seattle-based coffee brewer in its last remaining retail space at 1350 Broadway, brokers told The Commercial Observer. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 8/25/11 2:07pm

office space

Ctrl-C Everlasting: Tech Firms Keep Moving to Silicon Alley, We Keep Writing About It

God bless the Silicon Alley trend piece. We’ve done one (and then another about a colony of the alley); and, incidentally, we cover the industry regularly every day here. No matter how much ink is proverbially spilled in deference to the tech industry’s growth, we as New York reporters can’t seem to get enough of the nerds-are-among-us-and-they-need-space-to-work angle. Read More

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