Bank of America Corporation

And the last empty Lexington Avenue storefront in the Bloomberg Tower goes to—wait for it&mdas  read more »

• Akin Gump Stauss Hauer & Feld, a fancy group of fancy-named lawyers, takes 203,000 square feet in the Bank of America building at One Bryant Park. The firm, god bless them, will pay over $100 per square foot for the 41st through 46th floors. Bank of America gets the tip-top 51 for itself (plus 36), and developer Douglas Durst gets to be a very happy man. (Globe St.)
• There won't be a West Side stadium for the Olympics or the Jets, but at least the rail yards will be sold for half a billion dollars. (Sometimes The Metropolitan Transportation Authority seems so powerful). Next door, little Javits doesn't look bad either. (New York Times)
• Brooklyn's transportation system, on the other hand, hasn't been so fortunate. A 200-foot stretch of rail yard between Bay Ridge and Sunset Park has been unlocked for over a year. We've got nothing against illegal dumping or prostitution, though. (NY Daily News)
• The days of our nation's overpriced real estate are finally over. In New York, however, home prices are still inflated by 43 percent--so, really, the bubble is fine. (CNN/Money)
• If 16,000 people on Staten Island lose power, does it make a sound? Apparently not--at least when Queens is hogging all the attention again. (WCBS)
Update: That happy developer is Douglas Durst, not David. - Max Abelson  read more »
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The architect Robert Fox, a partner at Cook + Fox Architects in New York, was talking about his favo  read more »

The architect Robert Fox, a partner at Cook + Fox Architects in New York, was talking about his favo  read more »

The Bank of America is taking another half-million square feet in the Durst Organization’s 1 Bryant Park (a.k.a. the Bank of America tower), bringing the 2.1 million-square foot building to about 80 percent full with two years to go until opening day. -Matthew Schuerman

Blogger Norman Oder suggests The New York Times hire a free-lancer (no, not himself, but perhaps Paul Moses) to cover the construction of its own headquarters on Eighth Avenue, and maybe even Atlantic Yards. Our first thought was, Wouldn’t that free-lancer face the same conflicts of interest that Times staff reporters do? Not necessarily. Oder uncovered a precedent at the Seattle Times. Unfortunately, the precedent got canned--or more precisely, his contract was not renewed.

Meanwhile, NoLandGrab reimagines today’s Times article on eminent domain as if it were Bruce Ratner talking about the Times building, rather than Douglas Durst about the Bank of America tower. The parallels are unmistakable.  read more »

-Matthew Schuerman

According to a source who was there, Bank of America's new plan for the renovation of 670 Sixth Avenue at 21st Street was greeted with enthusiasm this past Tuesday at the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing.

Problem was, the L.P.C. didn't have a quorum: no quorum, no vote. In June, the BoA got approval from Community Board 5 for an earlier design for this future bank branch, which was originally two former brownstones built in the 1850's and combined in 1963; the board was quite taken with it, but the L.P.C. thought it didn't fit in well with the Ladies' Mile Historic District.

So it was back to the drawing board for architectural firm Whidden Silver, brand-design firm Gilmore Group and the BoA's environmental-design team.

It appears to have worked, but we won't know for sure till next month's L.P.C. meeting, when the commission is slated to consider it once again.

Let's hope that the BoA retains some of the geometric quirkiness of this building; as is, it looks nice and funky.

The Real Estate had a quick chat with BoA spokesperson Tara Birk, who flat-out refused to give up any information about the changes and wouldn't make a rendering available. ("We're not going anywhere" is how she put it).  read more »

Oh, well!

- Matthew Grace

The New York Times has repeatedly trumpeted national standards for “going green”—b  read more »

The New York Times has repeatedly trumpeted national standards for “going green”—building envi  read more »

Not that we’re suggesting you attempt it, but there are good ways and bad ways to rob banks, as tw  read more »

We all saw how Gerald Levin, Time Warner Inc.'s chief, stood up in front of the cameras without a ne  read more »