Tom Acitelli | The New York Observer

Cushman & Wakefield Looking for New CEO; Mosler To Become Co-Chairman

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:21:39 -0400

Cushman & Wakefield, one of New York’s biggest commercial real estate brokerages, is looking for a new chief executive. Bruce Mosler, its CEO and president since January 2005, has been appointed co-chairman of the firm’s board, alongside John Cushman III. Cushman & Wakefield made the announcement Thursday.

Mr. Mosler, 51, will focus in his new role on Cushman’s global brokerage business, developing major accounts and serving key clients, according to information provided to The...

The Gate's Pat Fondiller Gets Freaky on Beer

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:45:12 -0400

It’s easy to envy Pat Fondiller, the beermeister of Park Slope institution The Gate. He gets paid to have conversations like this one on a recent late weeknight in the bar’s back corner. He was talking with Gate founder and owner Bobby Gagnon. The topic was which beer the bar would not carry. One TV over the bar played the Yankees game. Another, muted, played Chuck Norris' original The Delta Force.

Mr. Gagnon: “We...

Print Edition Stories: 9.16.09

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:49:13 -0400

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The Week in Real Estate: 9.4.09

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:16:15 -0400

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The Week in Real Estate: 8.28.09

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:56:01 -0400

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Print Edition Real Estate Stories: 8.26.09

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:24:21 -0400

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Getting Hopheaded in Brooklyn

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:57:50 -0400

Erica Shea was on the Chinatown bus from Boston to New York after Thanksgiving in 2008, reading Burkhard Bilger’s profile of Sam Calagione, the wort-crusted owner of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, in The New Yorker’s food issue. She texted her boyfriend, Stephen Valand, who was visiting relatives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn: “We have to do this.”

Within five months, the couple were in Oslo, Norway, the first stop in their 15-country, seven-week backpacking, CouchSurfing.com...

The Week in Real Estate: 8.21.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:35:35 -0400

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The Week in Real Estate: 8.7.09

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:00:28 -0400

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The Week in Real Estate: 7.31.09

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:10:59 -0400

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The Audacity of Hops

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:10:38 -0400

He played it safe and sad. President Obama picked Bud Light, that watery, insipid, largely tasteless, tinny amalgam owned by Belgians, run by Brazilians and favored by your uncle, for his Thursday White House sit-down with Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge, Mass., sergeant James Crowley.

Sigh. There were so many more—so many more—great American beers that the president could’ve chosen. But, as with these things, he had to consider the politics: “He’s trying...

Higher-End Hamptons Home Prices Drop Sharply

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:48:07 -0400

The higher-end of Hamptons housing is suffering.

The median sales price of a home south of socio-economic demarcation Route 27 on the South Fork of Long Island was $900,000 in the second quarter of 2009, appropriately hefty but down 41.9 percent from the same period in 2008, according to a new report from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. (The median for the Hamptons generally was $770,000, down 20.6 percent annually.)

It’s...

Real Estate Stories in The Observer's Print Edition: 7.22.09

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:20:34 -0400

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Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com: 7.17.09

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:27:26 -0400

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Real Estate Stories in The Print Edition: 7.8.09

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:47:21 -0400

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Inside Nicholas Cage's Museum Tower Condo

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:25:47 -0400

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Original Real Estate Stories This Week on Observer.com

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:48:10 -0400

A slide show of Tribeca's Marble House asking $24.5 M.

After renegotiation, financial analysts warm to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards...

... But! State's highest court agrees to hear eminent domain case against it.

St. Regis hires Darcy Stacom to market Fifth Avenue retail condos.

Why the refinancing of Douglas Durst's One Bryant Park isn't good news.

A new hotel at 100 Varick will use solar technology unprecedented for New York.

Manhattan Housing Market Coverage:
Key 2Q statistics.
Where the market's...

Is the Manhattan Housing Market Growing Up? Condo Party Busted

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:55:49 -0400

The new condo was the ubiquitous symbol of Manhattan’s housing boom. Tens of thousands—as many as 9,000 in 2005 alone, according to an analysis at the time by The Real Deal—either were proposed for the borough or developed and sold.

Not surprisingly, condos eventually outpaced co-ops in sales—a not insignificant trend given that, even with the condo-building explosion, co-ops still outnumbered condos roughly 3 to 1 in Manhattan. In the second quarter of 2009,...

Back to the Future on Manhattan Housing: How This Movie Ends

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:35:55 -0400

The New York Times on the local housing market: “Even at the peak of the spring buying season, brokerage offices across the city have been eerily quiet, buyers have been holding out for steep discounts and the inventory of unsold apartments has been growing.”

That was June 1989. A years-long wave of co-op conversions had helped drive the market to dizzying heights, altering not only neighborhoods, seemingly forever, but the very perception of home...

The 2Q Manhattan Housing Market Reports: Key Stats

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:34:51 -0400

Second-quarter Manhattan housing reports are out from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel; the Corcoran Group and PropertyShark; Brown Harris Stevens; and StreetEasy.

Here are comparisons of key stats to the second quarter of 2008. (Keep in mind the reports generally cover deals closed from April through June. The deals could have been negotiated months earlier.)

For analysis on where the hell the Manhattan housing market's headed, click here.

Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel:

Average sales price:...

One Bryant Park, St. Regis Retail Good News for Commercial Real Estate? Hardly

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:39:28 -0400

Settle down, everyone.

One Bryant Park’s $1.275 billion financing, as well as the marketing of the St. Regis New York retail condos and a 49 percent stake at 299 Park Avenue, do not mean, contrary to some cautiously ebullient speculation, that the New York commercial real estate market is turning.

It’s not even pivoting.

The deal and marketing pushes—news of which emerged in the last few days—involve particular...

Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:33:55 -0400

Meet Young Woo, the visionary developer who bought AIG's downtown towers.

The Sit-Down! Kingmaking broker Roger Erickson on the downturn and upturn.

Your Open House! Finding one-bedroom deals on the far Upper East Side.

Extell moves forward with West 25th Street boutique hotel.

Law firm Aaronson, Rappaport, Feinstein and Deutsch wants lots of office space along Third.

Bob Weinstein officially lists Beresford penthouse for $29.75 M.

Deutsche Bank pulls out of Worldwide Plaza deal...

... But buyers still interested!

Luigi Zunino is...

Real Estate Stories in The Observer's Print Edition

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:36:30 -0400

Luigi Zunino is on the hook for $45 M. at the Plaza. Too bad Berlusconi didn't buy.

Steve Wynn wants $25 M. for his 817 Fifth condo, fixed up from a major flood.

Big-time broker Roger Erickson on Steve Jobs, Bono and Madonna's odd choice.

Related vs. unions vs. elected officials over Bronx's Kingsbridge Armory.

Major law firm picks another recession to Manhattan office hunt.

Lease Beat! New office leases at 1 Bryant Park, 600 Lexington and 866 UN...

Original Real Estate Stories This Week on Observer.com

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:35:43 -0400

The priciest Hamptons rentals.

Glenwood's Gary Jacob on Manhattan's luxury apartment market.

Your Open House: Non-hipsters condo hunt in Williamsburg.

City wants a less ugly BQE for Carroll Gardens.

Landmarks Commisson moves to designate big swath of Lexington Ave.

Another big co-op turndown: 895 Park, $14 million rejected.

Kathy Sloane, broker to the Clintons, settles state tax issues.

Mayor Bloomberg in the lead on World Trade. Do the governors care?

Meanwhile, mayor joins Sheldon Silver in WTC offensive against Port Authority.

Makeover time...

Mark Walsh Back at Lehman Brothers--Why Did He Leave in the First Place? Oh, Right

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:44:04 -0400

Napoleon had his Hundred Days. Grover Cleveland had his second, non-consecutive term. Billy Martin managed the Yankees five different times.

Now, Mark Walsh gets his second chance at Lehman, in a way. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday morning that the onetime global head of real estate for Lehman Brothers, will return to the firm ... and to its real estate investments:

Mr. Walsh and a team of former Lehman colleagues are setting up a new...

Luxury Rent Check! The Near Future of Manhattan's Higher-End Apartment Market

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:30:51 -0400

Location: What’s Glenwood’s vacancy rate typically?

Mr. Jacob: Somewhere between 1 and 2 percent.

Really? When you hear various brokerages release their various vacancy rates for Manhattan, they all show it somewhere below 5 percent. Where do you think it is?

I would say that’s basically true, that, historically, the vacancy rate has been less than 5 percent. And, actually, by virtue of the rent-control laws, that if the vacancy...

Glenwood Head on Manhattan Luxury Rents: Down 10 Percent, Coming Back Up

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:01:55 -0400

The Observer sat down Thursday afternoon on the 17th floor of the Lucerne luxury high-rise on East 79th Street with Gary Jacob, the 59-year-old executive vice president of Glenwood Management, one of the city's leading higher-end apartment landlords (it was, in fact, his 36th anniversary with the firm controlled by Leonard Litwin). Apparently, even mighty Glenwood was not immune to the Great Recession:

"Rents have gone down," Mr. Jacob said. "They went down about 10...

Cushman's Bruce Mosler on the Downturn and Downtown

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:47:55 -0400

Location: Give us a sense of where the office-leasing market’s going in terms of taking rents, negotiability and space.
Mr. Mosler: The first observation that I have is that I think that what we’re now seeing is much more serious activity and interest in space than we’ve had perhaps in the last six months. I think it’s due to a couple of important dynamics, the first being, nine months ago, we were still dealing...

Original Real Estate Stories This Week on Observer.com

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:52:36 -0400

Paterson O.K. with some state privatization, including subway stations.

Sheffield57 owners settle with Kent Swig over millions in common charges.

Peter Fine sues Moinian, Silverstein over affordable housing financing.

NYU to build new academic, spiritual center off Washington Square.

Another Coney Island obstacle for Bloomberg's plan: a parking lot classification.

Christine Quinn intends to support Walentases' Dock Street project.

Aetna signs 10-year lease at SL Green's 100 Park Avenue.

Marc Holliday, Andrew Mathias bullish on midtown office future.

Mary Ann Tighe gives...

The Most Powerful Person in New York Real Estate: You! (Sort Of)

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:25:24 -0400

For the first time, we gave readers the opportunity, in unscientific online polls at Observer.com, to tell us who they thought were the most powerful people in New York real estate. (Note: The final Power 100 was picked by The Observer’s real estate desk.) Readers were given four names per category to choose from.

The Nos. 1 and 2, by category, below!

Commercial Landlords
Douglas Durst, Bill Rudin

Residential Landlords

Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:50:13 -0400

What's left of Coney Island opens for summer.

Mosler on Cushman & Wakefield acquisition rumors.

The commercial real estate industry is too optimistic.

Walentases curry City Council support on Dock Street.

WebMD hunts for midtown, midtown south space.

A slideshow of Related's West Side rail yards ... in 2019.

Volume of Manhattan building sales expected to slump in '09.

820 Fifth turns away Related's Jeff Blau.

Windermere trades for $181 a square foot.

Follow The Observer's real estate coverage on Twitter:...

Real Estate Stories in This Week's Observer Print Edition

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:51:08 -0400

Jeff Blau can't get into 820 Fifth with a mayoral recommendation and $31 million.

Sundae in the Park! Price-chops at old Cantor place at 110 CPS.

Too much optimism in New York's commercial real estate market.

Walentases, City Council forge alliance on Dock Street in Dumbo. Where's Yassky?

Rent Guidelines Board chairman Marvin Markus wants a rent tax.

New details on downtown's biggest investment-sales deal, the AIG towers.

Chief exec Bruce Mosler on the Cushman & Wakefield acquisition rumors.

WebMD wants...

Three Cheers for Pessimism!

Tue, 26 May 2009 11:16:56 -0400

Is the commercial real estate market too optimistic?

Talk with some of the market’s pros—including top executives and brokers—and you will quickly encounter a common refrain: Things are bad, sure, but they’re getting better. “What we’re seeing is much more activity and interest,” said an exec this month at one of New York’s biggest brokerages.

But the evidence is scant and almost always anecdotal, and the statements of confidence usually bland and noncommittal. For now, the...

CEO Mosler on Cushman Acquisition Rumors: 'We'll Do the Acquiring'

Tue, 26 May 2009 07:42:40 -0400

That rumor about a rival acquiring Cushman & Wakefield? Forget it, says chief executive Bruce Mosler. In an interview on Friday at Cushman’s West 52nd Street headquarters, he dismissed the rumors out of hand. More than that, surrounded by models of battleships and photographs of himself with fish he conquered off the East Coast, Mr. Mosler added that if there's any acquiring to be done, his firm would be doing it.

"There never has...

Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com

Fri, 15 May 2009 12:55:57 -0400

The auction for the mansion at 11 East 74th Street is called off.

Standard & Poor's delivers pessimistic news for commercial real estate; delinquencies soar.

Grubb & Ellis' David Arena touts the positive in the commercial real estate market.

Eighteen million might get you William F. and Pat Buckley's old 778 Park maisonette.

New York's biggest commercial deals: significant shrinkage.

Topshop wants more Manhattan locations.

AIG's downtown tower bids will set the area's commercial agenda.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pushes for...

The Top Commercial Real Estate Deals of Early 2008 and Early 2009

Wed, 13 May 2009 12:14:12 -0400

As part of a larger package on the New York office market in these crazy, crazy times, I wrote in this week's print Observer about the biggest commercial deals of 2009 so far. Basically, they're a rather bland lot and clash with the generally hopeful vibe understandably propogated by commercial sales brokers.

Here are the Top 10 commercial real estate deals in both the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of...

Biggest Commercial Deals: Significant Shrinkage

Tue, 12 May 2009 12:22:13 -0400

Perusing statistics on the city’s biggest commercial property deals is like going to the Empire State Building’s observation deck with tourist friends from out of town: You know it’s supposed to mean something, but New York can be so much cooler.

The statistics underline just how far New York’s property sales market has fallen, and not just since Lehman Brothers’ September 2008 collapse. The biggest deal in the first quarter of 2009 was CB Richard...

David Arena Looks on the Bright Side

Mon, 11 May 2009 13:23:28 -0400

Location: You’re optimistic. Why?
Mr. Arena: First, I think I have to draw a distinction between being a pie-eyed optimist and being a responsible optimist. I choose to be an optimist. Like Lincoln said, you can be as happy as you choose to be. So, an optimist, from my perspective, is how do you interpret the present situation and how you can define the future?
So being optimistic about the economy is different...

Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com

Fri, 08 May 2009 13:37:24 -0400

Peter Riguardi's optimism about the Manhattan office market!

Lord Norman Foster buys a co-op in 912 Fifth for $7.2 million.

Manhattan's biggest property investors, pre- and post-Lehman.

Two moguls want $34.7 million for combined Trump International condos.

The F.D.I.C. nears a major lease at the Empire State Building.

Stake up for grabs at site of deadly March 2008 crane collapse.

Deutsche Bank Building deconstruction delayed again.

Alexander Beloposky buys a $5 million condo in the Visionaire.

End of the line for M.T.A.'s...

Manhattan's Biggest Commercial Property Investors, Before and After Lehman

Tue, 05 May 2009 13:56:46 -0400

From April through September of last year, the 15 biggest commercial real estate investors in New York traded over $16.17 billion in property. Over the next six months, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the new 15 biggest traded around $1.892 billion, or barely one-tenth as much.

It’s not so much the dollar amounts—everyone knows things are bad—it’s who’s doing the spending. Gotham’s bigger property gobblers are increasingly domestic, privately held and from around these...

Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com

Fri, 01 May 2009 12:03:56 -0400

New Municipal Art Society president Vin Cipolla brings Twitter to preservation.

Sam Chang on the outer-borough and Manhattan hotel markets.

Capstone Advisory Group signs a long lease at Park House.

Big-time financier William Ackman defers to his mother-in-law at Douglas Elliman on his Majestic listing.

High-end Hamptons businesses brace for a rough summer.

Just why does New York lag behind so many cities in green building?

Joseph DeGrezia will open a restaurant at 805 Third; Ashton's Pub there will relocate.

A...

Real Estate Stories in This Week's Print Edition of The Observer

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:44:01 -0400

William Ackman lists his Majestic co-op for $10 million with his broker mother-in-law.

Government revenue from property transfer taxes has fallen dramatically--now what?

Cushman & Wakefield wins big at REBNY's Ingenie awards. CB Richard Ellis places second.

A Madoff-damaged Noel daughter is set to take a big hit on the sale of her East Side townhouse.

Landlord Vantage Properties searches for a new headquarters in midtown east.

The Hamptons real estate slump has local businesses worried about the summer.

Capstone...

Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:18:17 -0400

Clinton pal Paul Cejas wants $18.5 million for 834 Fifth co-op.

Downtown dominates the big office leasing deals in the first quarter.

Scott Panzer takes his team from Newmark Knight Frank to Jones Lang LaSalle.

Corcoran's Rick Hoffman on Hamptons housing this season: Bring on the kids!

Accounting giant Deloitte goes on the hunt for at least 600K feet of New York or New Jersey office space.

SL Green sues a rival, claims it sabotaged...

Downtown Leads 1Q Leasing Deals

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:14:48 -0400

Downtown hosted six of the top 10 leasing deals of the first quarter, according to a new report (PDF) from Colliers ABR. The other four were in troubled midtown.

The three biggest leasing deals as follows:

Penguin Group USA's 297,980-square-foot renewal and expansion in Tishman Speyer's 375 Hudson Square. MetSchools' fresh lease in the Sapir Organization's 100 Church Street for 200,000 square feet.Vantone Industrial's 190,000-square-foot pre-lease in the Port Authority's 1 World Trade (a.ka. the Freedom...

The Week in Real Estate: 4.17.09

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:16:12 -0400

A co-op owner at 101 Central Park West is asking less than what he paid in 2006.

Bloomberg's people are bullish on a financial services recovery.

Sean Sweeney, embattled kingmaker of Soho activism.

Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority at odds over last two World Trade Center towers. Bloomberg to the rescue?

Beer giant InBev wants office space in New York.

Brokers turn mean when discussing Madonna's new 81st Street mansion.

The Top 20 Manhattan office spaces available for sublease.

Landmarking...

Half of Queens Homes Now Selling Below $400K

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:37:32 -0400

For the first time since at least 2005, half the apartments and houses in Queens cost below $400,000. A new report from Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman pegged the median sales price for the first quarter at $393,000, representing a 4.8 percent annual decline and a slight drop, too, from the fourth quarter of 2008.

A sign of the times? Perhaps. Actually, probably so, given that the first-quarter numbers reflect deals negotiated post-Lehman.

The number of...

Top 20 Manhattan Office Spaces Available for Sublease

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:02:31 -0400

In this week's print Observer, Dana Rubinstein writes about the challenges facing the midtown office market. Part of this is spurred by the amounts of space now available for sublease from companies that have had to shed employees or to otherwise consolidate.

Herewith, courtesy of the crackerjack researchers at CB Richard Ellis, are the top 20 blocks of Manhattan office space available for sublease.

1. 77 Water Street
595,917 square feet

2. 114 West 47th...

Midtown Office Space Availability Rate Highest Since 1994

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:58:17 -0400

Midtown office leasing has grown so anemic and space so plentiful that a new CB Richard Ellis snapshot reports that the submarket is basically its emptiest in 15 years. New office space put up for lease in March drove midtown's availability rate to 14.2 percent, its "highest ... since July 1994."

It's not alchemy. Companies are shedding employees; spaces are opening. This includes up to 10.13 million square feet of available sublease space, roughly one-third...

The Gate Joins Cask Ale Prostelyzing

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:54:50 -0400

Alex Hall and Andy Benson are rock stars in the cask ale universe. Finding them standing together in a corner of the Gate in Park Slope on Friday evening, April 10, at the bar’s inaugural cask ale festival was akin to bumping into John Lennon and Paul McCartney at a Learning Annex songwriting workshop.

“These are probably, what, 50 years old?” Mr. Benson gestured toward the brass taps that Mr. Hall...

Average Home Price Drops to $660K; Hello, Half-a-Mill?; Keep an Eye on Condos

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:12:47 -0400

The uber-powerful Real Estate Board of New York has weighed in on the local housing market in the first quarter, presenting a rather comprehensive body of stats that spills out into all boroughs and that shows, like reports last week covering Manhattan, drooping sales and largely steady prices.

The most striking stat, as far as we can tell: $660,000 was the average home sales price for the entire city in the first quarter, and that...