By Daniel Geiger 1/30/12 8:00am

lease beat

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown

Queens District Attorney to Relocate

The Queens District Attorney’s Office is considering a large lease in Forest Hills, Queens in offices that used to be occupied by the major airline JetBlue, several sources told The Commercial Observer. 

The office of the Queen’s DA, Richard Brown, is in talks to lease approximately 180,000 square feet at Forest Hills Tower, space that was formerly leased by JetBlue, which decided last year to relocate from the 500,000-square-foot building to Long Island City. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 1/24/12 1:00pm

Lease of the Week

750 Third Avenue.

Endurance Ensures 750 Third

Endurance Reinsurance needed more office space. But growing wasn’t going to be as easy as just tacking a few new floors onto its existing footprint.

The firm had split its operations between two closely located buildings on Third Avenue, 750 and 767 Third Avenue. A quick perusal of the former revealed that only a tantalizing scrap on the building’s 10th floor was available. Alone, it wasn’t going to cut it. Endurance, a roughly 60,000-square-foot tenant at the time, was looking to grow by about 50 percent or more. Read More

By Jotham Sederstrom 11/01/11 10:50am

the sit-down

Peter Riguardi and Jones Lang LaSalle will move to 330 Madison Avenue.

Jones Lang LaSalle's Tristate President on Big Poaches and Big Moves

Since joining Jones Lang LaSalle in 2002 as president of New York operations, Peter Riguardi has spearheaded a rapid expansion drive that has culminated in the hiring of no fewer than 100 new brokers over the past nine years. Mr. Riguardi, 50, spoke to The Commercial Observer last week about that ambitious hiring phase, the firm’s leasing assignment at 85 Broad Street and, for the first time, his plans to move the firm to 330 Madison Avenue.

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 10/06/09 2:20pm

A Sport of It

The Commercial Observer: What’s happening right now at Jones Lang LaSalle?
Mr. Riguardi: We’re on a journey as an organization, and we’re on a journey as a group here in New York; and I think they’ve been traveling at pretty parallel courses. For years, people thought Jones Lang LaSalle was a great adviser and provided Read More

By Dana Rubinstein 5/04/09 4:51pm

The Office Optimist

Location: You work in the Citigroup Center in midtown. Does midtown seem emptier to you lately?
Mr. Riguardi: You know what, I would have to say no. I’m so energized by New York City, so maybe I’m a bad person to ask that question to.

I understand you’re an optimist, but have you Read More

By Dana Rubinstein 4/20/09 9:43pm

Poached! Panzer and Co. Jump from Newmark to Jones Lang

The light-eyed, round-headed Scott Panzer flew the coop this month, migrating from brokerage Newmark Knight Frank to what he describes as the fairer environs of rival firm Jones Lang LaSalle.

Mr. Panzer has taken a 12-member (possibly 13-member) team along for the ride, one that includes 20-year commercial veterans Deborah van der Heyden and Robert Read More

By Dana Rubinstein and Eliot Brown 10/02/08 12:00pm

Big Real Estate Would Love Bloomberg Triplex

The story was reported by Max Abelson, Eliot Brown and Dana Rubinstein; and written by Ms. Rubinstein.

New York’s real estate community doesn’t just love Mayor Bloomberg. It lurves him. And it’s greeting the news of his third-term bid accordingly.

A sampling:

"Love him," said developer and landlord Alex Sapir. "Let’s keep him forever." Read More