Broadway and Investcorp bought the building for $1.2 billion in 2007, in one of the most expensive building purchases that heady year. In more recent news, the building is being threatened with 45 percent vacancy after Deutsche Bank left, and the NFL plans to vacate its offices there in less than a year.

According to Reuters, who first reported the story, Broadway and Investcorp financed the purchase with $1.1 billion worth of debt, including a $440 million mortgage. The rest of the debt was divided up into six pieces with SL Green holding onto four pieces and Vornado holding the smallest chunk. In their agreement, Vornado assumed $15 million of SL Green's debt position, which Vornado paid $111 million for.

mcoyne@observer.com

Jones Lang LaSalle has hired longtime Broadway Partners managing director Gregory Green as president of the firm's National Agency Leasing group. Mr. Green, 48, will be based out of Jones Lang LaSalle's New York office and will work with landlords in the tristate region and nationally, according to a release.

Mr. Green, whose transaction history while at Broadway Partners totaled more than 25 million square feet, will also be responsible for designing JLL's leasing agency strategy and for expanding its agency leasing and property management efforts.

"I am energized at the opportunity to work in partnership with Jones Lang LaSalle's Agency Leasing, Investment Sales and Property Management groups," said Mr. Green in a prepared statement. "The opportunity to work with these groups, and the company's corporate accounts and tenant representation groups, is very powerful."

jsederstrom@observer.com

Staff writers at Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News may no longer have to work in one of the ugliest office buildings to blight New York's, or any city's, streetscape. The Daily News has hired brokerage Cushman & Wakefield to look for new office space. Rumor has it that the paper wants offices roughly comparable in size to the 120,000 square feet it now occupies at 450 West 33rd Street, at 10th Avenue, but the precise square footage could not be confirmed.

This could be good news. Not only are the Snooze's current offices nearly two avenue blocks west of the nearest subway, but did we mention that the building, which has been compared to both the Death Star and an elephant's foot, is ugly?

The Daily News signed the lease for 120,000 square feet in the 16-story edifice in 1994. Surely, Mr. Zuckerman had his reasons. One was probably the building's massive, newsroom-friendly 100,000-square-foot floorplates. (The Associated Press also has offices there.)

The Cushman broker handling the hunt, Michael Burgio, declined to comment for this article, as did a spokesman for the tabloid. But it's possible Mr. Zuckerman is just trying to frighten his landlord, Broadway Partners, into offering lower rent.

For its part, Broadway Partners, which paid a staggering $664 million for the 1.7-million-square-foot building mid-boom '07, has every incentive to hold onto this prized tenant. Good occupants of similar size interested in moving to the far West Side are something of a rare commodity these days.

drubinstein@observer.com

The Manhattan office market dropped 22.9 percent between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009, according to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price September Indices, compared to 30.1 percent regionally and 21.2 percent nationally. (The indices track the price changes for commercial real estate in the top 10 U.S. markets by comparing prices of different assets over time.) Meanwhile, vacancy rates have plunged, and analysts expect anywhere from $1.8 to $700 billion of distressed commercial debt to come due by 2013.

Some of that, of course, falls in top-flight Manhattan. Several Class A, midtown office towers—the majority of which stem from auctions of Macklowe Properties’ distressed portfolio—have mortgages that mature in 2009 and 2010 (six in 2010 alone, in fact), according to September data from research firm Real Capital Analytics and regulatory filings.

Nonetheless, a lot of vultures waiting to pick up distressed Manhattan assets at fire-sale prices are going to be very disappointed, said Dan Fasulo, a managing director at Real Capital and an ardent Manhattan market watcher.

“I think, at some point, if the building is not performing, if it lost a major tenant or rents went down and they can’t pay debt service, [a lender] might foreclose, but these lenders are not going to give away assets for cents on the dollar,” he said. “They are going to tuck it away in their portfolio. … I don’t think lenders are gong to be in a rush to liquidate the good sites.”

One of the few commercial assets that Macklowe Properties was not forced to unload in August 2008, after defaulting on loan payments to creditors surrounding an epic $7 billion Manhattan commercial deal in 2007, was 400 Madison Avenue.

On Feb. 1, 2010, Macklowe has a $65.5 million mortgage payment due, leading Real Capital to classify the property as potentially troubled. But with 98 percent of 400 Madison leased to tenants like Pokeman USA, Xroads Solutions Group and Goldin Associates, the likelihood of Macklowe defaulting on the loan is low, Mr. Fasulo said. The debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) on the property is 2.24, according to Real Capital, meaning cash flow from the building is more than twice the debt-servicing costs. Macklowe, led by chairman William Macklowe, declined to comment for this article.

THE VERDICT IS STILL out on the biggest, most delayed deal of 2009, though it might have been the closest thing to a fire sale New York can expect in the foreseeable future. George Comfort & Sons, along with RCG Longview, DRA Advisors and the Feil Organization, closed on the last distressed Macklowe property, Worldwide Plaza, in July for $590 million—65 percent below what it had sold for in 2007—after two other deals fell through.

Ultimately, Deutsche Bank agreed to provide the investors with a $470 million mortgage; write down Macklowe’s original $1 billion mortgage from 2007; and put up $135 in equity. Though the building was 50 percent vacant, analysts expect it to fill up soon since the $369-per-square-foot price tag allows the investors to entice new tenants with exceedingly competitive rents.

Some of the other buildings in George Comfort’s portfolio face more immediate risks.

A $60 million payment at 63 Madison Avenue comes due on Jan. 1, and the property reportedly entered special servicing in July. According to Costar, 550,000 square feet of the nearly 800,000 total leasable feet remains vacant, and Real Capital estimates the DSCR is 1.49. The firm has another January payment due on 498 Seventh Avenue, stemming from a $181.5 million mortgage it refinanced in 2004. The company purchased the 876,704-square-foot building with Loeb Realty Partners for $42 million in 1997.

Real Capital also included George Comfort’s 339,900-square-foot building at 119 West 40th Street on its list of troubled properties. Though the building’s $160 million mortgage does not mature until 2017, according to Real Capital, the building went into receivership over the summer due to “depleted cash reserves,” Lois Weiss reported in the New York Post.

Comfort, Fortis Property Group and Leon Charney bought the building for $182 million in 2007 and launched a major renovation. In early 2008, a Wien & Malkin fund picked up the $23 million mezzanine debt on the building from RBS Greenwich Capital and Wachovia at the discount price of $16.8 million. Wells Fargo is among the larger tenants whose lease expires this year, and even in the event of renewals, rates are expected to drop.

With a DSCR of 1.13, 119 West 40th is nearing what Mr. Fasulo called “the red zone” below 1. “Anything even close to 1 now is a red flag because these numbers were compiled at origination of loan, so if they’ve lost a tenant or rents have gone down, they’re done.” 

That Comfort was able to negotiate the biggest deal of 2009, despite being in danger of defaulting on 119 West 40th, is a unique product of the current downturn, Mr. Fasulo said.

“In the past, if you lost all this money for your investors, no one would invest with you again; now that’s not the case,” he said. “The tremendous and unique violence of this market is going to give a lot of people a pass. People are going to say, ‘It’s not me, it’s the market.’ Also, there are only so many qualified property owners out there.”

“We are currently in negotiation on all three refinancings, and I expect a good result on each property,” George Comfort & Sons president and CEO Peter Duncan said in an email. He declined to elaborate on the details of specific mortgages.

THE NAME THAT APPEARS most frequently on Real Capital’s list of potentially troubled midtown properties is the once high-flying Broadway Partners.

Broadway’s buildings at 340 Madison Avenue, 450 West 33rd Street, 280 Park Avenue and 237 Park Avenue were in September all classified as potentially troubled (as was 100 Wall Street downtown). Two of them, 100 Wall and 237 Broadway, had loans due in May 2009; 280 Park, which has a $1.1 million mortgage that does not come due until 2016, was also listed as potentially troubled due to a maturing mortgage. Meanwhile, the $472 million mortgage that Broadway took to buy 340 Madison—yet another distressed asset from the Macklowe portfolio—for $550 million comes due on Jan. 1, 2011.

One of Boston’s investments that looked relatively safe in 2008 is also in danger of foreclosure, Mr. Fasulo said: “Four fifty is in bad shape. I think they are going to lose that one.” Broadway paid $700 million for the 16-story office building at 450 West 35th Street in June 2007. The 1.75 million–square–foot building is 85 percent occupied, with tenants including the Associated Press, the New York Daily News, and U.S. News & World Report.

“Broadway is current on its loan obligations and has no maturities in the 2009-2010 time frame,” a Broadway Partners spokesman told The Commercial Observer in an email. He declined to comment on the terms of specific loans.

The New York Observer reported in August that Broadway renegotiated $459 million of loan payments to its primary lender, Lehman Brothers, that were due in May on 10 properties it purchased between December 2006 and May 2007. Broadway agreed to transfer three of the troubled properties to Lehman in July, and retain a minority stake in the remaining seven in exchange for an immediate cash payment of $26 million and an additional $14 million later. Lehman agreed to extend the loans to June 10, 2012.

Meanwhile, income on many of the buildings Broadway paid top dollar for are dipping fast. The office tower they bought at 280 Park for $1.25 billion in November 2007, with a $1.1 billion loan from JV Investcorp Realty, for instance, is now worth only one-tenth of what the firm bought it for: $147 million.

TWO BUILDINGS WITHIN A block of each other on West 57th Street are listed as potentially troubled due to mortgages that matured on Oct. 1. A JPMorgan CMBS Fund holds both the $29 million first mortgage on 50 West 57th Street and the $31 million first mortgage at 140 West 57th Street. Though both properties have gone into special servicing, in looser credit markets both would have surely qualified for refinancing. With a DSCR of 2.06, the 89,650-square-foot property between Sixth and Seventh avenues seems to be in slightly better shape than the smaller building one block east, which has a DSCR of 1.41.

Which brings us to Mort Zuckerman’s Boston Properties, the REIT that now finds itself, rather paradoxically in the current market, with both the largest number of mortgages maturing in 2010, and piles of cash at its disposal. As of July, Boston had $820 million in cash and nearly its entire billion-dollar line of credit available, according to its 2009 second-quarter earnings report.

Boston took a $188.3 million write-down on three of the office buildings it bought from Macklowe last year for $1.1 billion, and the overall occupancy in its eight midtown properties fell from 99.8 percent at the end of the second quarter in 2008 to 91.6 percent by June 30, 2009. It also reported a $23 million loss from the suspension of the planned construction of a tower at 250 West 55th Street.

Despite the losses at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, Boston Properties CFO Michael LaBelle said in the second-quarter-earnings call that the company plans to pay down $100 million of the $500 million in securitized debt that will come due next year. Three of the properties it bought from the Macklowe portfolio, 2 Grand Central Tower, 125 West 55th Street and 540 Madison Avenue, account for $272 million of Boston’s total securitized debt obligations in 2010.

Boston Properties assumed Macklowe’s $200 million mortgage with Wells Fargo when it bought the 23-story office building at 125 West 55th from Deutsche Bank in August 2008. Goldman Sachs and Meraas Capital own $63.5 million of mezzanine debt on the property, which was 100 percent leased as of June 30. A $158 million payment is due in March, when the first mortgage matures. A $114 million payment on 2 Grand Central, which is 95 percent leased, and a $240 million payment on 540 Madison are also due next year. The $963.6 million mortgage on the most high-profile trophy Boston snagged from Macklowe, the GM Building, does not come due until after 2013. It is 97 percent leased.

Boston Properties spokeswoman Arista Joyner would not comment on details of the three mortgages, and referred The Commercial Observer to Mr. LaBelle’s comments in the transcript of the 2009 second-quarter-earnings call.

As of June 31, the company had taken care of all its 2009 maturities, Mr. Labelle said. “We are now focusing on our 2010 exposure, where we have some secured mortgages coming due, totaling about $800 million,” he said. “Five of these mortgages relate to joint venture properties, and our share of the total exposure is just over $500 million.”

editorial@observer.com

They owned some of the country’s best Class A office properties—the 62-story Aon Center in Los Angeles, One City Centre in Houston, 522 Fifth Avenue in New York—but they were always searching for more. Led by founder and CEO Scott Lawlor, the faster their real estate empire grew, the faster Broadway scrambled to conquer even more office buildings from California to New York.

Their Macklowe-like strategy: to rake in office properties on highly leveraged loans, wait for rents to rise, and sell the buildings at a profit within two years.

But the market’s crash has left the new kid on the block more bruised than his older rivals. Indeed, the nine-year-old company acquired its taste for risk at precisely the wrong time. They bought 28 office properties around the country in 2006 and 2007, at prices that critics argued were too high even then, in contrast to only nine office properties bought from 2001 through 2003.

“The new players in the industry are the ones who really have been hit the hardest,” said New York City corporate and real estate attorney Edward A. Mermelstein. “Their exposure is just so much greater because most of their acquisitions happened within a short period of time.”

Mr. Mermelstein added that more well-established real estate players had wised up after going through the last few down cycles, since they understand that “once you leverage above 50, 60 percent, you’re possibly going to expose yourself.”

Now, Broadway has defaulted on short-term loans for over a dozen buildings, and two of their properties have been foreclosed. To make matters worse, Broadway’s primary lender for many of these buildings—such as 10 properties, including one in New York, bought on May 15, 2007, alone—was Lehman Brothers. The question now is whether they can raise the necessary capital to pay off their loans and survive.

“There’s no question Scott’s business model was very much living on the edge,” said Real Capital Analytics’ managing director Dan Fasulo. “Obviously, he got stuck without a chair when the music stopped.”

SELLING MAY BE THE only way Broadway can raise the necessary capital to pay off their short-term loans, which are coming due for three office properties in spite of a recent deal struck with Lehman, according to Real Capital Analytics: 280 Park Avenue, the Park Avenue Atrium, and the Union Bank of California Center in Seattle (340 Madison is also potentially troubled).

Their current properties are worth only a fraction of what Broadway purchased them for. Although Broadway’s James Hennessy described his timing to buy 500 West Monroe in Chicago in July 2007 for $336.7 million as “ideal,” the property is now worth only $63 million. (Broadway barely avoided foreclosure on the building, which is one-fourth vacant, by striking a deal with lenders, after defaulting on a loan in February 2009.) And 280 Park Avenue—which they bought for $1.25 billion in November 2007, using a $1.1 billion loan—is now worth only one-tenth of what Broadway bought it for: $147 million.

Several industry experts said that Broadway’s long-term survival remains debatable. “Ultimately, I do not know what their fate is going to be,” said Ronald Solarz, an executive managing director at Eastern Consolidated.

“All his [Mr. Lawlor’s] equity’s gone in his ’06-’07 acquisitions, so there’s only so many cards left they can play to survive,” Mr. Fasulo said.

Since Broadway is a private firm, Mr. Fasulo noted, the amount of reserve capital they have is unknown. But recent events suggest that they don’t have much equity left.

THIS PAST JANUARY, BROADWAY defaulted on a $470 million mezzanine loan for the Hancock Tower in Boston with little hope for recouping capital, since two of the tower’s largest tenants had left. New England’s tallest skyscraper then entered foreclosure. It was auctioned off on March 31 to Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners, which already had a stake in the loan, for $660.6 million, less than half of the $1.3 billion that Broadway had originally paid.

According to The Boston Globe, the auction finished within a minute with just one bid—before executives had taken off their suit jackets.

The 1.75 million–square–foot glass skyscraper, overlooking the Boston skyline and the Charles River, is not the only property that has suffered from delinquent loans. Broadway defaulted on $46.9 million in loans for 701 Gateway in San Francisco in February, according to Real Capital. (They had purchased it in March of 2007 for $66 million, or $388 per square foot.) After defaulting on a hefty mortgage for 500 West Monroe in Chicago, they barely skirted foreclosure by negotiating a deal with Transwestern for the loan to be due in 2012. Lenders have even foreclosed on a small former Uptown Bakers on I Street in Washington, D.C., which Broadway bought for $7.6 million in April 2005. The building is now slated to be demolished when it finds a buyer.

Three weeks ago, Broadway negotiated some breathing room with Lehman Brothers—but the deal suggests that they don’t have much cash left. For the 10 office properties where Broadway defaulted on $459 million in loans in May, they agreed to transfer three properties to Lehman, including 100 Wall Street, and retain a minority stake in seven others. All in all, Broadway committed to pay Lehman $26 million in cash now and pay an additional $14 million later. The loans will now be due in three years, on June 11, 2012.

Though Mr. Lawlor said in a Bloomberg article that this deal takes care of all their debt obligations for the next three years, question marks still hang over 280 Park Avenue (they borrowed $1.1 billion from JV Investcorp Real Estate for the $1.125 billion deal in November 2007); the Park Avenue Atrium (they borrowed $1.053 billion from Lehman for the $1.18 billion deal in May 2007); the Union Bank of California Center in Seattle; and 340 Madison (they borrowed $472 million from Lehman Brothers for the $550 million deal with Harry Macklowe). Real Capital has evaluated these properties as potentially troubled, with all but 340 Madison’s loans maturing very soon.

Broadway still has 15 Class A office properties left, including four high-profile ones in New York City. The only piece of Manhattan real estate that Real Capital has not classified as potentially troubled is in danger of failing anyway, according to The Real Deal; 450 West 33^rd Street—bought for $700 million in June 2007, with a $465 million loan from Wachovia—is the headquarters of the Associated Press and Mort Zuckerman’s media empire: U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News. Though unattractive on the outside, the 1.62 million–square–foot building is the perfect place for a newsroom, with lower rents than the AP’s former Rockefeller Center space, and one of eight office properties in Manhattan that offers over 100,000 square feet of contiguous space on a single floor. Mr. Zuckerman declined to comment on whether he would be interested in buying up the building.

MEANWHILE, BROADWAY HAS HAD to whittle down its staff to cut costs, according to several industry experts. Broadway’s No. 3—COO Jonathan Yormak—announced his departure last month. While Mr. Yormak himself may not have wanted to stick around, Andrew Singer, chairman and CEO of the Singer and Bassuk Organization, speculated that he may have been pressured to leave.

“There had to be pressure to downsize their acquisition team; I’m not sure they’re in a buying mode,” Mr. Singer said. “Anybody who’s involved in acquisition at all had to be excess.”

Broadway refused to speak with The Observer for this article. When The Observer went to the Seagram Building, the firm’s headquarters, at 375 Park Avenue to request an interview, Broadway’s receptionist said on the phone that she could not allow The Observer upstairs to the 29^th floor. (The receptionist is required to enter guests’ names into the server to allow them upstairs.)

Broadway Partners has operated on a fundamentally short time span: All but one of the 19 office properties they’ve bought since June 2004 (and sold) were sold within less than two years. This strategy worked while it could: They sold 660 Madison Avenue in June 2007 for $375 million at $1,471 per square foot—setting the record for the highest sales price per square foot in the country. (Two months later, that record was broken when 450 Park Avenue sold for $1,589 per square foot.) They just never got the chance to sell most of the buildings they bought in 2006 and 2007 before the market crashed.

Between May 2006 and May 2007, according to The Real Deal, Broadway bought more real estate in Manhattan than all but two buyers: Tishman Speyer and Macklowe. Overall, they have spent more than $15 billion buying up office properties since their founding in 2000.

Mr. Lawlor explained to The New York Times in August 2006 that once a building’s income has gone up, Broadway’s job is done. “We have a very strict discipline we try to bring to bear about sales,” he said.

“The velocity with which properties were changing hands, even at the time, I think, was a red flag for the market,” said Matthew Anderson, co-founder of Foresight Analytics.

That velocity, however, was Broadway’s guiding principle.

Industry experts nonetheless emphasized that bond-holders and lenders like Lehman are as much to blame as Broadway and real estate investors who acted the same way. “As far as I’m concerned, the lenders are the bigger, if not the biggest, culprits in the whole situation because they’ve allowed this mess to be created,” said Mr. Mermelstein, the attorney. “Who gives you money on blind faith? And we’re talking about billions of dollars,” Mr. Fasulo said. “It’s hard to find someone without blood on their hands.”

WILL BROADWAY PARTNERS SURVIVE? Perhaps. Industry experts emphasized that lenders have been lenient with loans so far. Mr. Fasulo said that lenders will continue to extend due dates; Mr. Mermelstein even predicted that lenders will discount the value of these loans, adding that they will have to acknowledge that “most of the loans on the books for commercial properties are either in default or going into default.”

“Realistically, most of these notes are worth 50 percent if not more than 50 percent off what the note is,” Mr. Mermelstein said. “So, if the lender doesn’t discount the note, all of a sudden they’re going to have to foreclose on millions and millions of square feet of property, and that’s not going to happen.”

Mr. Fasulo explained that lenders don’t see the use in taking back that much real estate. “As opposed to rushing to foreclosure,” he said, “many lenders have realized that, ‘If I take this asset back, what am I going to do with it? At least I have a skilled operator on the ground who can manage it.’”

Harry Macklowe gambled and lost—before the market crashed. This time, since both lenders and investors have plunged together into the abyss, Broadway Partners may have their chance to convince lenders of the need to scrape their way out of the abyss together.

Lehman bought that argument. The only question is whether stronger lenders will.

bkavoussi@observer.com

He could not be reached for comment. But a source familiar with the Broadway's goings-on said that Mr. Yormak, the firm's chief operating officer, had told founder and CEO (and friend) Scott Lawlor that he would leave, once he finished overseeing the workouts of their short-term debt, including that tied to the 24-building national portfolio that Broadway bought from Beacon Capital Partners in December 2006 (they closed in May 2007) for $3.3 billion.

The portfolio includes 237 Park, 100 Wall, and the John Hancock tower in Boston, which was sold in a foreclosure auction in April for half the $1.3 billion Broadway originally paid.

According to his online profile, still on the Broadway Partners Web site, the boyish-looking Mr. Yormak had worked at the firm since 2003, following a seven-year career as a commercial real estate lawyer, including a stint at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Perhaps he coveted the larger pay checks of his clients.

One source we spoke to suspects that Broadway Partners, which has been keeping its debt-restructuring hush hush, will be allowed to retain a small ownership stake in many of its buildings (a bit of a face-saving measure), while its equity is hollowed out from the inside. That could not be confirmed.

Updated, 2:24 p.m. Mr. Yormak, 37, returned our call this afternoon. He said the following:

"I left because I'm just looking to pursue some opportunities in a new platform, basically," adding, "There are no particular opportunities that I'm currently focused on."

Mr. Yormak added that he retains some "residual interests" in Broadway Partners, "but they obviously will be completely passive."

drubinstein@observer.com

Broadway Partners has been an obvious source of speculation for a while. But last week brought fresh chatter, courtesy of a Boston Globe columnist, who expressed himself dubious that the firm would be able to refinance the John Hancock Tower, the stunning I.M. Pei-designed scraper in Boston, for which Broadway is saddled with $472 million in short-term debt. (The columnist isn’t the only naysayer. As one New York broker told The Observer, “If they get out of that Hancock thing, it will be a miracle.”)

A single highly leveraged trophy tower would be worrisome enough. But, using loads of short-term debt, the firm bought more than $13 billion worth of office towers in five years, from Houston to San Francisco, from New York to D.C., rising from a relatively unknown regional player to one of the shining stars of the galloping investment market. New York City’s Bankers Trust Building at 280 Park Avenue was a Broadway Partner’s buy; so, too, was the ample—and amply ugly—450 West 33rd Street; as were 340 Madison Avenue, Park Avenue Atrium and 100 Wall Street. So burnished did the firm’s reputation become that President Bush nominated Charles Millard, then its managing director, to head the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Times have changed.

The firm has a total of more than $1 billion in short-term debt coming due in early 2009. Broadway’s said to have hired Citigroup to help restructure its finances (incidentally, that’s the same firm a desperate Macklowe Properties hired not so long ago to do the same). Now, the firm plans to sell its strongest properties, acquire some joint-venture partners and raise a $200 million fund to buy back debt. So far, Broadway has sold one building—Houston’s One City Centre, and is reportedly taking bids on 1615 L Street in Washington and 200 State Street in Boston.

While Broadway, which declined to comment for this article, might well be bullish, as far as its New York properties are concerned, the prognosis appears to be mixed. The Daily News building at 450 West 33rd Street was put on the market earlier this year, and then quietly withdrawn, presumably for lack of a good buyer. Meanwhile, the firm has been engaged in a lengthy and well-publicized effort to recapitalize a portion of 340 Madison Avenue. So far, no deal.

To finance the purchase of 280 Park Avenue, Broadway borrowed $440 million from Wells Fargo Bank. It’s unclear when that financing is due, but the firm is said to have a 50 percent Arab partner, which makes that purchase somewhat more secure. 

If Broadway does find itself hard up, that’s bad news for tenants, according to Peter Riguardi, president of Jones Lang LaSalle’s New York office.

“They’re well liked,” he said. “Clients of mine that are in their buildings are just very pleased with the type of services and attention they get. As far as their investments and when they made them and how leveraged they are, I’m not really close enough to know much about that.”

drubinstein@observer.com

According to The Globe:

But, according to The Globe, the building is only worth about $1 billion, which is "a big number, unless you already owe $1.1 billion on the same tower."

Yikes.

There's been much speculation about Broadway Partners, in the wake of its voracious buying spree right before the market turned sour. Betwen 2002 and 2007, Broadway Partners spent more than $13 billion buying up trophy scrapers across the country, including its purchase of the Park Avenue Atrium and 100 Wall Street in May 2007, as part of another, in this case 24-building, portfolio purchase from Beacon.

In June 2007, Broadway Partners announed that it had also gobbled up the aesthetically-challenged Daily News building at 450 West 33rd Street.

How Broadway Partners is coping with all of this short-term financing coming due remains unclear.

According to The Globe, "a spokesman for Broadway Partners, Rick Matthews, said the firm does not discuss details of its business in public and declined to talk about Hancock finances.

"One thing Matthews confirmed: The [Hancock] tower's vacancy rate projected for Jan. 1 is about 15 percent, a high number. He called that an unlikely worst-case scenario and said Broadway Partners expected to sign new leases before the end of the year."

Broadway Partners just inked a sizable new lease at its 340 Madison Avenue, the 22-story, squat glass building one block from Grand Central.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency –- an arm of the Treasury Department that regulates national banks (and, boy!, could they use some regulation) -- has leased 50,519 square feet in the building, which the OCC has leased in since 2004. The office is expanding its footprint from about 45,000 square feet. The asking rent was $80 a square foot.

Studley super brokers Ken Ruderman and Michael Goldman represented the tenant. Howard Fiddle and Paul Amrich of CBRE have represented Broadway Properties on all recent leases.

And there have been a lot of them -- bringing the total occupancy of the building, which Broadway bought in late 2006 at 43 percent occupancy, to 92 percent.

SunGard recently signed a 120,000 square foot lease at the property; PNC Financial Services Group leased 40,310 square feet; Banco Espirito Santo Investment signed a lease for 13,328 square feet; Unison Site Management leased 11,113 square feet; and investment firm Zenkyoren Asset Management of America, Inc. leased 4,115 square feet.

Scott Lawlor's ravenous Broadway bought 660 Madison in May 2006 for $216 million, and went to contract on its sale in August of this year; the sale was recorded in city records this morning. The buyer was Etoile 660 Madison LLC.