By Daniel Edward Rosen 2/07/12 8:30am

lease beat

Nonprofit Leasing by Submarket.

Nonprofit Leasing Stands Firm: Report

Nonprofit and public sector tenants took a total of 2.6 million square feet in 2011, approximately the same amount it leased a year earlier, but committed to much larger leases than in the previous year, according to a new report released yesterday by Cassidy Turley. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 1/24/12 11:08am

Postings

1173 REBNY 116th Annual Banquet, 1.19.12

Walking the REBNY Ballroom: Hungry Brokers, Angry Lapidus

Speeches were casually ignored, drinks were spilled and bonds were formed at last Thursday’s 116th annual Real Estate Board of New York Gala, which this year drew an estimated 2,000 brokers, owners, advertising buyers and real estate reporters to the New York Hilton for an evening of conviviality, honorifics and hushed deal making. Among the fray was Commercial Observer staff writer Daniel Geiger, who during the course of the evening saw his stenopad tossed by an irate real estate broker and who unabashedly accosted Studley’s Woody Heller in the hotel’s bathroom, all for the sake of the story. Below, a timeline of gala comings and goings, from the innocuous gossip down to the downright obnoxious.  Read More

By Daniel Geiger 1/03/12 3:00pm

power broker

Baxter, Richard NEW 6 31 11

Richard Baxter Dishes on the Drama Behind the Deals at Casa Lever

It was lunchtime at Casa Lever, the high-end restaurant in the iconic Lever House, and Richard Baxter was on his BlackBerry negotiating.

It was a busy year for Mr. Baxter and his colleagues at Jones Lang LaSalle. His four-man team comprised some of the city’s most prominent brokers of large-scale commercial office buildings, and as the Manhattan sales market’s post-recessionary thaw continues, Mr. Baxter estimated that the group had tallied an impressive $1.3 billion in deals this year.

Three days before Christmas, however, it wasn’t one particular skyscraper Mr. Baxter was bargaining over from his plum seat at Casa Lever. In a year-end rush, his group had loose ends to tie up, deals to close and transactions still in the works. And so, on this particular Thursday amid a bustling lunch crowd, Mr. Baxter was not negotiating with a buyer or a building owner, but rather one of his own assistants, whom he was asking to stay late to receive critical documents and to help get the team through the rest of the day. Read More

By Dan Geiger 12/15/11 9:00am

lease beat

100 Church Street. (Courtesy Property Shark)

EXCLUSIVE: Law Dept. Renewal a Vote of Confidence for 100 Church Street

The New York City Law Department is renewing a roughly 280,000-square-foot-lease at 100 Church Street, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The department, which represents the city, the Mayor and all city agencies in both civil and criminal litigation cases, occupies several floors at 100 Church Street, a roughly 1.1-million-square-foot building in Lower Manhattan where the office has based its operations since 1978. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 12/07/11 2:00pm

ICSC

i-love-new-york

The White Whale of West 57th Street: Nordstrom appears poised for NYC

It’s the great white whale of Manhattan retail.

Aside from Walmart, Nordstrom is the store every retail broker in the city dreams of harpooning and reeling into a new home. One prominent broker familiar with the store, the amount of space it needs and the rents it would probably be willing to pay estimates that the commission for handling its lease would be around $10 million.

But like a leviathan lurking beneath the waves, the department store has offered only fleeting glimpses around the city, most notably at several development sites and a few existing assets with the capacity to accommodate its sprawling footprint.

The scuttlebutt nowadays: Nordstrom is contemplating one of two leases, one at the West Side rail yards with the Related Companies or another at the base of Extell Development’s soaring new residential tower now rising at 157 West 57th Street. Read More

By Guelda Voien 10/14/11 5:50pm

Acquisitions

The iconic Clocktower Building is changing hands

Clocktower Building Strikes Deal

Africa Israel USA, the controversial owner and operator of commercial properties across the United States, has entered into a contract to sell 5 Madison Avenue to an undisclosed investor for $165 million. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 8/24/11 8:56am

Machers

1552 Broadway.

Sutton’s Place: Finding the King of New York Retail

If you’ve ever gone shopping in New York City, you’ve likely been an unwitting guest of Jeff Sutton. He is a discreet host, but an expansive one.

Among other properties, he controls: the 33,000-square-foot American Eagle at the corner of Broadway and Houston Street; the 40,000-square-foot Armani flagship in 717 Fifth, soon to house an 18,400-square-foot Dolce & Gabbana; the 20,000-square-foot Abercrombie & Fitch store up the street at 720 Fifth; the 46,000-square-foot American Girl Place down the street at 609 Fifth; 1551 Broadway in Times Square, which includes the four-floor American Eagle Outfitters flagship; the Aeropostale lease at 1515 Broadway; 141 Fifth in the Flatiron, where Cole Haan supplanted a Bath & Body Works; the Polo Ralph Lauren space at 379 West Broadway in Soho; several spots in and around Herald Square, including the Foot Locker House of Hoops, Aeropostale, Aldo, Geox, American Eagle and Esprit; and 747 Madison Avenue, the location of the Valentino flagship. Just last week, he teamed with SL Green, the city’s biggest commercial landlord, on the $136 million purchase of 1552 Broadway, which contains the Times Square TGI Friday’s.

That is just a sampling. Read More