ICSC

By Dan Geiger 12/07/11 3:00pm

Ariel Schuster. (Photo by Hannah Mattix)

Walking the Floor at the International Council of Shopping Centers conference

Each year, the sound and the fury that is the International Council of Shopping Centers conference returns to New York City for a two-day affair that includes dozens of seminars, the retail industry’s biggest names, and, for some lucky brokers, the start of lucrative new relationships with the nation’s biggest brands. The Commercial Observer’s Dan Geiger walked the floor at the New York Hilton this past Monday and eavesdropped on the city’s biggest players, including Bruce Ratner, Paul Massey and Robert K. Futterman, as they courted retailers from California to Brooklyn. Below, a minute-by-minute look at Monday’s proceedings, with a special assists from Observer photographer Hannah Mattix.

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By Daniel Edward Rosen 12/07/11 3:00pm

ICSC

Q: The City's Next Hot Neighborhood? A: Take Your Pick

To seasoned retail brokers, the very concept of the next big neighborhood in a city that has been developed several times over is, well, naïve. Still, as The Commercial Observer recently learned, most are still looking for a reason to believe. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 12/07/11 2:00pm

ICSC

The White Whale of West 57th Street: Nordstrom appears poised for NYC

It’s the great white whale of Manhattan retail.

Aside from Walmart, Nordstrom is the store every retail broker in the city dreams of harpooning and reeling into a new home. One prominent broker familiar with the store, the amount of space it needs and the rents it would probably be willing to pay estimates that the commission for handling its lease would be around $10 million.

But like a leviathan lurking beneath the waves, the department store has offered only fleeting glimpses around the city, most notably at several development sites and a few existing assets with the capacity to accommodate its sprawling footprint.

The scuttlebutt nowadays: Nordstrom is contemplating one of two leases, one at the West Side rail yards with the Related Companies or another at the base of Extell Development’s soaring new residential tower now rising at 157 West 57th Street. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 12/07/11 1:30pm

ICSC

After Hours: Real Estate Brokers Look For After-After-After ICSC Party

It’s ICSC week in New York City and while many in the retail business consider the event secondary to the larger conference held by the organization in Las Vegas each May, for many Manhattan real estate brokers, the conference is the most important of the year—and not necessarily just because of its jam-packed daytime roster of speakers and seminars.

In establishments from the New York Times’s four-star-rated Del Posto to the Dream Hotel in Lower Manhattan, buttoned-up retail brokers will be wining and dining potential clients during a two-day orgy of after-hour soirees, dinners and suds-soaked meetings, all designed with the deal in mind. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 12/06/11 9:00am

ICSC

London Calling: UK Eyes NYC Vacancies

There’s plenty of room in the NYC retail market for a UK-based shop to make it big here.

Sweating like he was getting grilled by the fuzz, Cushman & Wakefield’s Mark Burlton, a partner in the firm’s retail services branch in London, politely fielded questions from The Commercial Observer on which European big-and-small-boxers have their Read More

12/06/11 8:30am

ICSC

Mayor Bloomberg to City: Don't be frontin' on Wal-Mart

Following his opening statements at this year’s ICSC conference, Mayor Mike Bloomberg told reporters in a separate press conference that the city should relax its hardliner stance on keeping big-boxer Wal-Mart out of all five boroughs.

“If they (Wal-Mart) want to come, we should not say ‘no’ to anybody,” said Mayor Mike inside the Mercury Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 12/05/11 12:46pm

ICSC

You See, the Mayor Sees, We All See ICSC

We were inside the West Ballroom at The Hilton New York, on the hunt for available seats when a large and friendly man sitting dead center in the front row waved us over and asked us to sit with him.

That friendly man was Bruce Ratner, head of Forest City Ratner Companies, who had no idea that he had just invited two reporters from The Commercial Observer to join him. Read More