Commercial Observer

By Daniel Edward Rosen 3/01 10:04am

lease beat

40 Wall Street

PFM Management Inks Deal at 40 Wall

Demand for space at 40 Wall Street continues to grow with news yesterday that the Trump Organization-owned building’s leasing agency signed financial advisory group PFM Management to a ten-year lease on the 49th floor of the office tower.

Public Financial Management, which does business as PFM Asset Management, is taking 9,263 square feet of turnkey space on the entire 49th floor of 40 Wall Street, brokers involved with the transaction exclusively told The Commercial Observer yesterday. Asking rents were in the low $40s. Read More

By Carl Gaines 3/01 9:49am

finance beat

MortgageBankersAssociation

As Hopes for Economic Recovery Rise So Does CRE Loan Pricing

According to data from DebtX, commercial real estate loans priced by the firm have risen steadily over the past 12 months, as treasury yields and credit spreads move in the opposite direction, which experts tell The Commercial Observer could be a sign of an overall improving economy.

DebtX said Wednesday that it had priced 51,399 commercial real estate loans with an aggregate principal balance of $616.1 billion during the first month of 2012. They collateralize 651 US CMBS trusts. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 3/01 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

By Carl Gaines 2/29 3:53pm

Financing

900 Third Avenue. (Courtesy Property Shark)

Paramount to Acquire Stake in 900 Third Avenue

Paramount Group is the buyer set to acquire a 49 percent stake in 900 Third Avenue from Investa Office Fund, sources told The Commercial Observer. That stake was IOF’s final US property. The sale is set to close in late March 2012 and was announced in mid-February with a sale agreement of $172.7 million, though IOF didn’t disclose the buyer at that time.

“The sale of IOF’s interest in the New York asset will complete the fund’s exit from the US market in line with our stated strategy, at an overall premium of 9.4 percent to June book value,” IOF Fund Manager Toby Phelps said in a prepared statement. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 2/29 3:46pm

lease beat

Time Warner Center. (Courtesy Property Shark)

C. Wonder Deal Inked at Time Warner Center

C. Wonder, the preppy apparel and accessories retailer launched last year by designer Tory Burch’s ex husband, Christopher Burch, has signed on for a space at Time Warner Center, according to sources familiar with the deal.

The store, which opened another Manhattan store last October in Soho, will take about half of the roughly 15,000 square feet formerly occupied by the now-defunct bookstore chain Borders on the retail complex’s second floor. Read More

By Sam Chandan 2/29 3:33pm

the lead indicator

Sam Chandan.

Pushing Past City’s Core Investments

In spite of a slowdown over the third and fourth quarters, transaction activity in Manhattan nearly doubled the prior year’s tally during 2011. Surpassing $20 billion in new equity and debt, investment in support of property trades was still only a fraction of the market’s pre-recession peak. But recast in terms of sustainable activity, volume is quickly approaching the nominal level of sales from the prior decade. With a finite set of assets available to esurient investors, prices have necessarily recovered the lion’s share of their losses. As confidence in the underlying economic recovery firms, should well-heeled investors make more concerted efforts to invest beyond the core properties that have dominated activity thus far?
Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 2/29 3:22pm

Sit-Down

Woody Heller. (Illustration by Joao Maio Pinto)

Woody Heller on Investment Sales and New Demand for Lower Manhattan

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 Richard Baxter of Jones Lang LaSalle, J.D. Parker of Marcus & Millichap, Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan of CBRE and Peter Hausperg of Eastern Consolidated. But, first, after the jump, none other than Woody Heller of Studley.

Read More

By Carl Gaines 2/29 2:41pm

Investment Sales

Illustration by Peter Lettre.

Medium Cool: Investment Sales Volume Spiked in 2011, but Future’s Still Cloudy

A self-described car guy, Woody Heller, executive managing director and head of the Capital Transactions Group at Studley, sees parallels between automobiles as hard assets and commercial real estate investment sales velocity in New York. Apart from the obvious luxury to be found in cars and Class A buildings alike—his 33-million-square-foot transaction volume likely doesn’t include a jalopy—both markets have also lately been bolstered by similar factors.

“With debt available and with interest rates so incredibly low, it encourages one to buy because money is so cheap,” he said. “If the asset class is in favor compared with what much of the alternatives are—if borrowing costs are incredibly low—it continues to steer people to want to invest in hard assets like real estate.” Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 2/29 2:35pm

Investment Sales 2012

William Shanahan. (Illustration Joao Maio Pinto)

Darcy Stacom & William Shanahan on 10 East 53rd Street Chinese Investors

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 Richard Baxter of Jones Lang LaSalle, J.D. Parker of Marcus & Millichap, Woody Heller of Studley and Peter Hausperg of Eastern Consolidated. But, first, after the jump, none other than Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan of CBRE.

Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 2/28 3:33pm

Law and Order

Wreckage from the May 2008 Crane Collapse on E. 91st St.

DOB Wanted to Cuff Crane Owner James Lomma for Shoddy Crane Upkeep

The former head of the Department of Building’s cranes and derricks division said that crane owner James Lomma should have been arrested for poorly maintaining two tower cranes in 2007.

During her testimony at Mr. Lomma’s manslaughter trial in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday, former DOB official Bethany Klein said that the head of New York Crane & Equipment Corp. had failed to make two crucial repairs to the two cranes, one of which eventually collapse and kill two men at the E. 91st street accident in 2008.  Read More

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