By Daniel Geiger 3/01 4:34pm

Investment Sales 2012

Peter Hauspurg. (Illustration by Joao Maio Pinto)

Peter Hauspurg on Mastering the Middle

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 Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan of CBRE. But, first, after the jump, none other than Peter Hauspurg of Eastern Consolidated.

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By Daniel Edward Rosen 2/07 10:30am

power broker

Eastern Consolidated Senior Director Aliza Avital (photo credit: Hannah Mattix)

Locked & Loaded: Multi-talented broker Aliza Avital does it all

The broker in the canary-yellow Dolce & Gabbana overcoat—a festive and vernal touch that was perfectly suitable for this year’s bipolar winter—may be better dressed than most of the commercial brokerage industry, and could certainly lay claim to being one of the toughest in the business as well.

Aliza Avital, thin and towering and striking like a modern-day skyscraper, sat in the conference room in the offices of Eastern Consolidated, where she had just been promoted to senior director. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 7/19/11 8:37am

power broker

Mr. Gross joined Eastern Consolidated in 2002.

Eastern Consolidated's Stuart Gross, the Developer as Broker

It was shortly before the economic collapse that the owner of 116 John Street in the financial district turned to Stuart Gross for answers.

Long an office building with ground-floor retail, the roughly 80-year-old high-rise had slouched to such epic deterioration over the decades that it had been recategorized as Class B, or maybe even C—hardly a designation to brag about. With such a state of disrepair, the new owner, Hacienda Intercontinental Realty, had no sure opportunities for refinancing, nor did the firm want to sell the property outright, Mr. Gross recalled. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 7/13/11 1:25pm

Building Expectations

116john

How 116 John Street Became an Apartment Building

Since 2002, Stuart Gross has served as executive managing director at Eastern Consolidated, where he has specialized in complicated restructuring deals and investment sales transactions. Mr. Gross, 58, spoke to The Observer about 116 John Street, until recently one of few remaining office building on a street once teeming with commercial assets. Now, the building is being converted to rental apartments and leasing is expected to begin early next year.

What was the motivation behind converting 116 John Street into a residential building?

Mr. Gross: That was a complicated form of ownership that required some sort of financial engineering. But, as always, that tail should not wag the dog. The real issue had been, what’s the property worth and what’s its highest and best use, and who’s the best person to exploit that use. Read More

By Pamela Engel 6/29/11 3:33pm

Building Expectations

1633broadwaypropertyshark

Never Mind the Trophies—What About the Other Office Sales?

Eastern Consolidated recently released a report noting that New York office property trades have more than doubled during the second quarter to $4.3 billion, leading us to wonder if the investment-sales market, at least for office properties, really has come back.

But then we noticed something: Major firms with major deals on massive office towers dominate the list, with individual buys valued at hundreds of millions of dollars (which would contribute heftily to that $4.3 billion total). Not surprising, but it makes us wonder how the rest of the market is doing. Read More