Brookfield Properties has yet to begin "substantial" construction of a platform necessary to construct its two planned Ninth Avenue skyscrapers, despite earlier statements that the work would begin this past summer, according to Real Estate Weekly.

In February, Brookfield, led by hunky CEO Ric Clark, said work would begin on the platform over the railyard in June, according to The New York Times:

"Despite a flagging economy, Brookfield Properties says it will start work in June on a $600 million platform over railroad tracks near Ninth Avenue, where it plans to build two towering office buildings."

The railyard comprises half of Brookfield's five-acre lot, bounded by Ninth and Dyer avenues, 31st and 33rd streets.  read more »

Brookfield Properties, Merrill Lynch's landlord at the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan, took a beating yesterday in public trading. According to the Wall Street Journal, Brookfield's stock plummeted 18 percent to $17.40 a share by 4 p.m. Monday.

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 »

One of the remaining bidders for the West Side rail yards, a team of the Durst Organizaiton and Vornado Realty Trust, said it is expecting that S.I. Newhouse’s Condé Nast will remain part of its bid as an anchor tenant.

“We expect that Condé would be our partner,” said Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz.

However, Condé, which began a new search for space after Tishman Speyer was named the winner over the Durst/Vornado team in March, did not make clear its plans, as a company spokeswoman, Maury Perl, declined comment.  read more »

Revised bids for the West Side rail yards were due today, and Brookfield Properties did not submit a response, leaving four of the city’s biggest developers in a battle for control of the 26-acre site west of Pennsylvania Station.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the site, put out a statement a few minutes ago saying that the agency had received four revised proposals, with no bid from Brookfield. The timeline, which puts selection of a developer in April, remains the same, the MTA said.  read more »

Brookfield Properties seems to like the architectural veterans over at Skidmore Owings and Merrill these days. Brookfield brought on the longtime firm to design its two signature towers in its bid for the West Side rail yards, and now the mega-office landlord has released an SOM-designed rendering for two office towers on a superblock to the east, bounded by 31st and 33rd streets, and Ninth and 10th Avenues (which are rather reminiscent of the designs for the rail yards to the east). The site currently opens to rail tracks that lead into Pennsylvania Station.

The Times’ Charles Bagli had a piece today on Brookfield’s development, and while the print edition had a small rendering, the online version went without it. Accordingly, I called over to the folks at Brookfield, and they gave us the pretty picture to the right.  read more »

Brookfield Properties seems to be moving along with a renewal with Merrill Lynch at the World Financial Center, which, at least as of last month was likely to mean a five-year lease. On a conference call with investors today, a Brookfield executive said the company was in “active and productive discussions with Merrill,” though didn’t expand beyond that.  read more »

Crain's reports that Goldman Sachs has extended its lease of 517,000 square feet at Brookfield Properties' One New York Plaza for 15 months as it awaits the completion of its new headquarters on West Street in Lower Manhattan. The headquarters is supposed to be done by late 2009.

Wall Street Journal architect critic Ada Louise Huxtable likes the West Side rail yard bids of Brookfield Properties and Extell Development Corporation. In general, Ms. Huxtable doesn't like any of the five bids, but those of Brookfield and Extell at least, she writes, "are worth talking about."  read more »

Any good development firm worth its salt has got to have a former City Hall staffer or two on hand to navigate the bureaucracy. Last month, Brookfield Properties sent its latest government hire, Joshua Sirefman, into a meeting to help present the company’s multi-billion dollar plan for the West Side rail yards to a joint city-Metropolitan Transportation Authority selection committee.  read more »