By Jotham Sederstrom 2/29/12 2:35pm

Investment Sales 2012

Darcy Stacom. (Illustration by 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.

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By Daniel Geiger 1/03/12 3:00pm

power broker

Baxter, Richard NEW 6 31 11

Richard Baxter Dishes on the Drama Behind the Deals at Casa Lever

It was lunchtime at Casa Lever, the high-end restaurant in the iconic Lever House, and Richard Baxter was on his BlackBerry negotiating.

It was a busy year for Mr. Baxter and his colleagues at Jones Lang LaSalle. His four-man team comprised some of the city’s most prominent brokers of large-scale commercial office buildings, and as the Manhattan sales market’s post-recessionary thaw continues, Mr. Baxter estimated that the group had tallied an impressive $1.3 billion in deals this year.

Three days before Christmas, however, it wasn’t one particular skyscraper Mr. Baxter was bargaining over from his plum seat at Casa Lever. In a year-end rush, his group had loose ends to tie up, deals to close and transactions still in the works. And so, on this particular Thursday amid a bustling lunch crowd, Mr. Baxter was not negotiating with a buyer or a building owner, but rather one of his own assistants, whom he was asking to stay late to receive critical documents and to help get the team through the rest of the day. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11/01/11 12:09pm

The Lease Beat

Queen of Skyscrapers, Meet the Crown Jewel. (Courtesy Property Shark)

'Queen of Skyscrapers' tapped to sell 10 East 53rd Street; Goes to Halloween Party Dressed as Self

The owners of 10 East 53rd Street have tapped CB Richard Ellis‘ “Queen of the Skyscrapers” to find a buyer for the “hidden gem” of a midtown office building, which already counts HarperCollins Publishers as a tenant.

Owner New Millenium Estates will rely on Darcy Stacom, a vice chairman at CBRE, to sell the building.

Ms. Stacom thinks she can find a new owner who will transform the 37-story, 388,000-square-foot asset into “the jewel box it can be.” Read More

By Laura Kusisto 4/26/11 10:57pm

Big Real Estate

Thirty Bidders Later, Former Morgan Stanley Hub in Contract

Hines Interests is in contract to sell the imposing hexagon-topped former Morgan Stanley hub at 750 Seventh Avenue, multiple sources told The Observer.

Interest from bidders was “through the roof,” according to one person involved in the process, with 20 to 30 prospective buyers, including a number foreigners from the Middle East and Asia. An offshore investor was Read More

By Laura Kusisto 3/14/11 5:03pm

Trading Spaces

SL Green Sells 28 West 44th for $161 M.

SL Green’s flight to quality continues, now that one of its middle-market midtown office buildings is in contract for $161 million.

The building at 28 West 44th Street (on “Club Row,” says the press release) will go to APF Properties and a Prudential Real Estate Investors managed fund for $448 per square foot, according to Read More

By Chloe Malle 8/24/10 12:34pm

Big-Time Buildings Broker Darcy Stacom Buys Some $4.8 M. Shoes!

CB Richard Ellis vice chairman Darcy Stacom has set records for her commercial real estate closings, but, according to city records, the winsome blonde and her husband, Chris Kraus, a managing director at rival brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle, recently closed a deal of their own: a $4.775 million four-bedroom at 447 East 57th Street. Ms. Read More

By Dana Rubinstein 2/03/10 12:13am

The Selling of Stuy Town

To flip through the pages of the 2006 offering book for potential buyers of the 11,200-apartment Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village-a deal that has devolved into the largest individual property default in modern history-is to immerse oneself in an historical delusion, one that, from today’s privileged vantage point, appears as likely as Read More