So maybe it wasn’t a bombshell after all, the “news” yesterday that Larry Silverstein might not be able to finish 3 World Trade Center all the way, leaving it instead as a seven-story retail and mechanical stump for the time being. In a statement, the downtown don insists he will find a tenant, and he has about two years to do it before he must truly pull the trigger and decide to cap the tower or to keep building. Read More
Construction at 3 World Trade Center could be capped at seven floors if developer Larry Silverstein can’t find enough tenants to pre-lease the tower’s first ten floors, Crain’s New York reported. Read More
It was a typical evening at the Real Estate Board of New York’s annual gala as John Cardinal O’Connor stepped up to the dais to address a crowd of several thousand of the city’s most ambitious commercial real estate brokers and owners.
But in a ritual repeated more or less each year, the archbishop of the New York archdiocese’s 2.37 million Catholics and one of the Vatican’s most forceful spokesmen in the United States during the 1980s, was summarily ignored by a brokerage community far more interested in making deals than in hearing the Gospel. Read More
Since it started with a roll call of 27 members in 1896 with the goal of “facilitating transactions in real estate,” the Real Estate Board of New York has indisputably been the city’s most influential real estate organization, with its annual gala being to brokers what the Vanity Fair Oscar party is for Hollywood: If you’re there, it means you’re somebody.
Sure, some may lovingly write it off as a veritable men’s club (men are thought to outnumber women five to one), chide it as “The Liar’s Ball” (each year is a broker’s best year, no matter how wretched the marketplace) and speak ill of the food (nearly everyone avoids the chicken and filet mignon).
But the REBNY gala is as essential to a real estate person’s reputation and status as the buildings and bricks he works with. A dozen of the city’s most legendary players spoke to The Commercial Observer about the blurry nights and boom years that helped make the event what it is today.
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In the strongest sign yet that 80-year-old Silverstein Properties chief executive Larry Silverstein is seriously considering a succession plan, a former president of Artisan Real Estate Ventures has been tapped as the World Trade Center owner’s co-chief executive, it was announced last week. Read More
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
Silverstein Properties has appointed a leasing team from the real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle to handle deals at 1177 Avenue of the Americas.
A lot appears to be riding on the assignment. Read More
In perhaps the final capstone to the 9/11 commemorations, Larry Silverstein has found his final tenant for 7 World Trade Center. Considered a boondoggle by many when Mr. Silverstein decided to rebuild the glass tower shortly after the attacks, it opened in May 2006 and was slow to find tenants, the first of which was the New York Academy of Sciences.
Slowly but surely more firms arrived, and now MSCI has joined them on the 47th through 49th floors of the 52-story building—it was the tallest structure downtown until recently being surpassed by its big brother. Read More
Silverstein Properties, along with Mayor Bloomberg, Chris Ward, Daniel Liebeskind, Michael Arad and pretty much every other person working at the World Trade Center site, held a construction update in the new 10th-floor leasing office inside 7 World Trade Center yesterday.
There wasn’t much news, but it was impressive to see the efforts being made to attract more tenants to the site (Condé’s in, but UBS is out). There are interactive touch screens with neighborhood amenities and transportation news—as though there were any question Tribeca and FiDi is a worse place to work than Midtwon—plus a 12-foot model of the finished site. It’s so big, the 1 WTC antenna is clipped to fit under the soaring ceilings. Silverstein even produced a Future World Trade Center video mixing live action and CGI that would make James Cameron proud, which has been posted by The Architect’s Newspaper. Grab some popcorn and enjoy. Read More
By all indications, the earthquake on Tuesday did no significant damage to any buildings in New York. That still did not keep the question from coming up at a tour of the soon-to-be-open World Trade Center site yesterday. Larry Silverstein quickly worked to put any concerns to rest. Read More
