Big news on multiple fronts thanks to a very complicated transaction just completed by CB Richard Ellis.

Arch Insurance Company, which CBRE just announced is consolidating its back-office operations in Jersey City, moving 300 employees to 107,000 square feet in Mack-Cali Realty Corp.'s Harborside Financial Center, is releasing space in midtown Manhattan and in the Financial District to an investment banking firm founded by the former head of UBS, and to Cleary Gottlieb, the white-shoe law firm.

Arch Insurance has subleased 30,000 square feet at 245 Park Avenue to Moelis & Co., former UBS Investment Bank president Kenneth Moelis' eponymous new firm that is, as CBRE broker Mark Ravesloot put it, "bursting at the seams" in its current space.  read more »

The souring real estate market hasn't caused brokerages to skimp on the food with which they lure reporters to quarterly breakfasts and luncheons.

At the Cushman & Wakefield breakfast at Michael's last week, the eggs were scrambled to the perfect fluffiness level; the crepes were nearly transparent; and the fruit salad didn't just include the cheap fruit -- there were blackberries and blueberries, too.

Meanwhile, at this afternoon's CB Richard Ellis second-quarter luncheon at the firm's MetLife building offices, the red meat, roasted asparagus and bowtie pasta were bountiful.

The good news was less so.

Howard Fiddle and David Maurer-Hollaender, both vice chairmen at CBRE, said that Manhattan leasing activity is down, but not by much.  read more »

Office space in midtown Manhattan, New York City’s priciest commercial market, is still cheaper than in London, Moscow, Tokyo, Mumbai, Paris, Singapore and Dubai, according to CB Richard Ellis’ latest Global Market Rents survey.

In fact, the midtown market, with an average occupancy cost of $103.43 per square foot, slipped to an ego-deflating 13th in the l  read more »

It’s a balls-out move, but this Wednesday CB Richard Ellis will take on its archrival Cushman & Wakefield by hosting a first-quarter analysis luncheon for media folks the day after Cushman & Wakefield hosts its own first-quarter breakfast for the same media folks.

Call it a schmooze-fight.  read more »

Newsweek, which for decades has called midtown its home, is nearing a deal that would move its offices downtown to 100 Church Street.  read more »

Time to ready the oxygen tanks: Commercial brokers are planning to race up 86 floors of the Empire State Building.

Come Feb. 5, an Empire State Building spokeswoman tells us that the city’s biggest brokerages will square off with each other as part of the building’s annual “Run-Up,” with Jones Lang LaSalle, Cushman & Wakefield, CB Richard Ellis, Studley and Newmark Knight Frank each planning to send at least one team of five runners (team names include the “Sub-Primers” and “Victoria’s Secret”).  read more »

Principal Financial Group has signed a lease to take a 19,000-square-foot space in Vornado Realty Trust’s 888 Seventh Avenue, according to CB Richard Ellis broker Paul Amrich, who handled the deal for Principal.

Principal, a Fortune 500 financial services firm, will take the entire 25th floor, moving from a space of about 10,000 feet on the 11th floor of the building.  read more »

It’s official: midtown South has been annexed by midtown, as the prospect of billions in investment in Penn Station and some 7.5 million square feet in anticipated development by Steve Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust have convinced a major brokerage that things are changing along 34th Street.

CB Richard Ellis today announced that the Empire State Building, the Penn Plaza buildings and others in the area will now be included in the firm’s definition of “midtown.”

The move, which also stretched the boundaries to include the New York Times building on Eighth Avenue, puts about 17 million square feet of office space into midtown, according to CB Richard Ellis.

Press release after the jump.  read more »

“You see they got oysters over there?” a financial type said as he extended a closed fist to a coworker in celebration.

The wine flowed as CBRE brokers and their clients prepped for the evening’s main event: getting down with Booker T. and the M.G.’s. The concert was part of the River to River festival, a series of summer events set up after Sept. 11 to revitalize lower Manhattan.

However, much of the conversation at the cocktail reception revolved around business.  read more »

It’s been a sleepy year so far in the Manhattan office-leasing world, which is to be expected. Vacancy rates are at a huge low and average rents are at an all-time high.

But brokers are quietly saying it’s going to be a very busy summer and, indeed, things are picking up. Take midtown recently: In April, leasing activity there nearly tripled what it was in March, according to stats from brokerage CB Richard Ellis; companies leased 1.84 million square feet of office space versus 660,000 square feet in March.  read more »