As Republican and Democrats gear up for what increasingly seems likely to be one of the dirtiest presidential elections in memory, eyes are turning to the grandest and most welcome endorsement of all: cold hard cash.
In the real estate bubble of New York, views vary on how vocal your support of any one candidate should be, or at least that is what the builder-donors are telling The Real Deal. Read More
When we heard Michael Gross was working on yet another book about an uber-rich New York residential building, our eyes rolled ever so slightly. The Observer had read and loved his opus on 740 Park (“The World’s Richest Apartment Building”), but with one in the works about 15CPW, titled The House of Outrageous Fortune, what more could he possibly have to say about the nesting habits of the extraordinarily wealthy? Beyond what he had already written on the subject for us, of course.
A lot, it turns out. Read More
With over $200 million in sales at the Laureate alone last year, Shlomi Reuveni is riding high. But unlike so many of New York’s top-tier brokers who set their eyes exclusively toward Park and Fifth, Mr. Reuveni has worked on an impressively diverse array of new developments around the city.
From the former Tiffany’s building 15USW to Tribeca’s Reade57, Mr. Reuveni and his team at BHS Select are involved in some of the hottest new developments in town. Mr. Reuveni took us on a tour, and now it is your turn. Read More
It was a clear fall day on the Upper West Side as Shlomi Reuveni walked briskly down Broadway. Rising on either side were the Art Deco and Gothic buildings with their enduring cornices and hand-laid bricks, the quintessence of Uptown living.
Mr. Reuveni was headed for the Laureate, a recently completed condo building that has been quietly commanding some of the top prices in the neighborhood, thanks largely to his efforts as the building’s broker. High profile notwithstanding, The Observer almost walked right past the place. It may have been Mr. Reuveni’s broad stride that distracted us from the entrance on 76th Street. Or perhaps it was the luxury building’s understated glory. The Laureate is camouflaged, almost theatrically so, to match its surroundings. The faux prewar detail is impressively comprehensive, from the painted iron balconies to the granite and limestone facade.
“Hey Shlomi!” the man at the front desk called out. “Hello!” Mr. Reuveni responded, beaming brighter than the lights of the lobby’s artificial Christmas tree. Read More
The Sunday Times had a city-straddling profile of Big Real Estate’s prince charming, Jed Walentas and his ascension into the realm of the famous families, Durst, Trump, LeFrak et al.
The delightfully disheveled Mr. Walentas, “whose daily uniform usually consists of a hoodie and jeans,” speaks on topics ranging from his domains in Dumbo and Hells Kitchen to art and air hockey. The most striking passage, though, is his staunch defense of development as a social good for New York. Read More
All that agita for nothing.
After fighting the bullish Steve Rothto save the Empire State Building’s spot on the skyline, Tony Malkin has won a reprieve—thanks to the miserable economy. Read More
For nine years now, Bruce Ratner has talked of transforming Brooklyn with his Atlantic Yards project. Bringing professional sports back to the borough, creating a new skyline, “a neighborhood practically from scratch,” as architect Frank Gehry once described it. There would be union jobs and affordable housing for all to enjoy.
As of now, only basketball and a handful of those jobs are guaranteed, all of which took three times as long as originally planned. Mr. Ratner and his partners like to blame the economy and the holdouts who sued to save their property, but the fact remains, they are running well behind schedule, possibly even in violation of previous commitments made to the state when the project was approved.
To catch up, Forest City Ratner has come up with a novel solution for myriad problems with his project: modular construction. More than transforming Brooklyn, Mr. Ratner may transform the way the entire city, even the world, builds. At least that is his hope.
“It’s taken us a while to get there on the architecture,” Mr. Ratner told The Observer last month on the day he unveiled his new plans for a modular approach at Atlantic Yards. “We did a lot of work to make sure it was something appropriate, in fitting in with the arena and a good reflection on Brooklyn, the city and our country.”
He is not alone in his optimism, either. Read More
It looks like 3 Columbus Circle will not be a bust after all. SL Green has officially announced a deal for august ad agency Y&R to lease 340,000 square feet in the sickly cerulean tower, according to the Post‘s Steve Cuozzo. The ad men are renting floors 3 through 10 and 18 and 19, the latter of which will afford lovely views of Central Park. Read More
Well, our jobs just got a lot harder.
The Times‘s Charles Bagli, dean of the development beat, filed his second story today since mid-June, when he went on book leave—he is working on a tome about the rise, fall and rise of Stuyvesant Town. The last article he wrote was about 9/11, Read More
499 Park Avenue resembles a giant block of obsidian, perfect but for the even more perfect bluntings made to the corners of the obelisk. Running down one-third of the tower’s facade, the width of a single pane of glass, this is the one design flourish of the building. They were made with sculptor’s precision by the celebrated I.M. Pei some 31 years ago.
Inside, workers have been busy putting the finishing touches on the office duplex. The space atop this modernist ziggurat was being white-boxed, stripped back to its bare steel columns, a fresh coat of paint on the floors, grotty insulation still clinging here and there to a few beams. Light streamed in from all sides, the recently rechristened Ed Koch Bridge directly to the right down 59th Street, Central Park up and to the left. Everything had been cleaned and shined to make way for the brokers who would be streaming through the space, trying to find a new tenant for office space that had not been vacant since the building was finished in 1980.
The showstopper is the upper floor, where drop ceilings had been stripped out to expose a soaring 18-foot cathedral of steel and glass. It felt like Soho-on-Park. Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
