By Jotham Sederstrom 2/29/12 3:22pm

Sit-Down

Woody Heller. (Illustration by Joao Maio Pinto)

Woody Heller on Investment Sales and New Demand for Lower Manhattan

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

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By Daniel Geiger 1/31/12 2:56pm

Lease of the Week

104 West 27th Street. (Photo by Peter Lettre)

Redwood City-based StrongMail Expands, But Not Without Hitch

Eager to extend its reach beyond the West Coast, Redwood City-based provider of interactive email and social media marketing solutions, StrongMail Systems, crept into Manhattan’s growing technology scene the fastest way it knew how: by acquiring the New York-based design firm Magnetik and consolidating in New York.

By the end of 2010, in fact, StrongMail had taken such advantage of Magnetik’s business ties and staff—not to mention 2,000 square feet of office space at 350 Seventh Avenue—that making inroads into Manhattan’s so-called Silicon Alley was beginning to seem easy.

So when StrongMail began to outgrow Magnetik’s footprint a year later, the marketing firm’s top officials approached brokers at the Kaufman Organization for a quick solution. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11/01/11 11:38am

The Power Broker

The broker techies (and venture capitalists) trust.

The Online World's Brick-and-Mortar Man

The fastest way to an emerging tech company’s heart is through its venture capitalist.

Such has been the modus operandi of Jack Petrie, a senior vice president at CresaPartners who has amassed a list of clients that reads like a veritable who’s who of Silicon Alley. He’s found these clients through contacts and clients of his in venture capital.

“I [find] that usually I can connect the dots with a lot of these companies with relationships I have with V.C. firms and people I have met through the community,” said Mr. Petrie, 50. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 2:07pm

office space

Those were the days. And they still are!

Ctrl-C Everlasting: Tech Firms Keep Moving to Silicon Alley, We Keep Writing About It

God bless the Silicon Alley trend piece. We’ve done one (and then another about a colony of the alley); and, incidentally, we cover the industry regularly every day here. No matter how much ink is proverbially spilled in deference to the tech industry’s growth, we as New York reporters can’t seem to get enough of the nerds-are-among-us-and-they-need-space-to-work angle. Read More

By Laura Kusisto 4/07/11 1:05pm

lease beat

Motley Crüe's Marketing Outpost in the Flatiron

If you’ve ever dusted off your Motley Crüe cassettes and wondered, “Are they still alive?,” we have news for you. The marketing gurus for your favorite `80s hair band have landed some sweet Flatiron digs. 

Tenth Street Entertainment has helped revive many a flatlining career, including that of the Crüe, Blondie, Steven Tyler, Royal Underground and even Duke Ellington (who, Read More