By Matt Chaban 11/07/11 8:32pm

Everybody Go Downtown

A new day dawns downtown. (Getty)

Downtown Looking Up: The Offices of Wall Street Are Occupied Like It's 2007!

All that clangor coming from Zuccotti Park, the chanting and beating of drums—what if it is not a protest of economic inequality and corporate malfeasance but instead a celebration? For there is good reason to revel downtown, as the office leasing market is having a bit of a boom. Wall Street may be occupied, but so are the commercial spaces surrounding it, according to a new report to be released tomorrow by the Downtown Alliance.

Lower Manhattan has seen a rise in office occupancies across a wide swath of industries, from the typical FIRE firms to media and healthcare concerns. The neighborhood is on track to have its best year since 2006, with 4.8 million square feet leased up through the third quarter of 2011. Read More

By Guelda Voien 9/13/11 1:28pm

office space

Tara Stacom of Cushman & Wakefield.

The Fall Season in Downtown

“I’m more bullish today than I was in 2007,” said Cushman & Wakefield’s Tara Stacom of  1 World Trade and the outlook for the 1,776-foot tower that will offer 3.1 million square feet of Class A office space. “I did not think one of the first tenants would be a million-plus feet.”

Signing the lease with Condé Nast in May of this year was, for lack of a less hackneyed term, a game-changer for downtown Manhattan, especially as the area emerges not only from the Great Recession but from the malaise that characterized so much of the area since 9/11. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 8/23/11 10:13am

power broker

Mr. Packman joined Trinity in November 2010.

The Hudson Square Crier

When Cushman & Wakefield accepted leasing duties at 1 Hudson Square in 2005, the building just north of Canal Street was still struggling to transcend its traffic-choked proximity to the Holland Tunnel and an address in a neighborhood nobody had really named (it’s called Hudson Square today).

Yet by seizing on a small but notable spurt in recent activity from a handful of tech firms and digital start-ups, the Cushman agents helped reposition the 1.1-million-square-foot building into a hub for the city’s creative underclass. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 7/12/11 8:44am

power broker

Mr. Glickman worked on the deal that brought Ogilvy & Mather to 11th Avenue, a move that changed the far West Side.

Paul Glickman, Jones Lang LaSalle's Transformer

At first glance, the 11-story property on 11th Avenue near 47th Street hardly seemed the ideal candidate to become Manhattan’s next big office building.

Situated on the far West Side, the 98-year-old building at 636 11th Avenue was destined for a full-blown hotel or condominium conversion when the Hakimian Organization purchased a stake in it in 2005. Indeed, what corporate tenant in its right mind would willingly wander so far west? Or at least that’s what Ben Hakimian thought. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 7/06/11 8:57am

lease beat

There.

Big-Time Law Firm Deal at Brookfield’s Grace Building

In one of the biggest law firm deals this year in New York, intellectual property specialists Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton has taken 45,000 square feet at the Grace Building at 1114 Avenue of the Americas.

The deal, which comes six months after Kilpatrick Stockton merged with Townsend and Townsend and Crew, allows the legal practice to now double its size from its current 22,500 square feet at 31 West 52nd Street, brokers said. At the 49-story, Brookfield Office Properties-co-owned Grace Building, the firm will occupy the entire 21st floor and a portion of the 22nd. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 7/05/11 3:14pm

lease beat

To the left, the Bloomberg Tower.

Investment Firm Takes Five Years at 130 East 59th

Augusta Columbia Capital, a recently launched investment firm, has signed a five-year, 7,281-square-foot lease at 130 East 59th Street.

The tenant sought to open its doors quickly and the UJA Organization-owned building offered a high-end pre-built installation that fit its needs, brokers said. The direct lease, which will begin this month after the firm vacates its temporary space at 345 Park Avenue, will encompass a portion of the 17-story building’s 14th floor at an asking rent of approximately $53 per square foot. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 6/29/11 9:25am

The Lab

George Comfort & Sons' Worldwide Plaza, shining bright.

The Nomura Move’s Real Impact on Downtown

Japanese bank Nomura’s decision to move out of the World Financial Center downtown and take 900,000 square feet at Worldwide Plaza in midtown is undoubtedly a blow for the tip of the island’s commercial future. The move will leave a huge vacancy at the Brookfield Properties-owned complex just as 3 million square feet of leases there are ending in 2013. (We saw the move coming in mid-May.)

But it’s more than just the vacancy. Read More