The New York Observer » Commercial Breaks

Where Madonna Once Passed Out, Office Leases Proliferate

30 West 21st Street

There is no hell for sinful buildings, just reincarnation. Thirty West 21st Street has transformed itself from home of `80s debauchery to desirable office space.

Three major leases have been signed in the building that was once Danceteria. Appco Group U.S., a major marketing company, has signed a five-year lease for 5,150 square Read More

Sam Zell: Optimistic About New York’s Real Estate Future

We talked to Sam Zell, the grave dancer himself, this afternoon. It was short and sweet, and mostly about a profile The Observer's working on. But, Mr. Zell, whose Equity Residential recently bought three apartment buildings in Manhattan, did have this to say about the New York real estate market:
"I think it’s Read More

SL Green Sells Brimming 19 West 44th for $123 M.

SL Green, the city's largest office landlord, has agreed to sell 19 West 44th Street for $123.2 million to Deka Immobilien, a German real estate investor.
That's nearly double the $67 million that SL Green paid for the 292,000-square-foot building in 2004. The company plans to invest the $118 million in net proceeds towards 125 Park Avenue, which it agreed to Read More

Jobs Dealer Moving HQ to SL Green’s 19 West 44th

19 West 44th Street
Employment agency Forrest Solutions is getting a professional makeover of its own.
Forrest Solutions has signed an 11-year lease for 17,684 square feet at 19 West 44th Street, The Commercial Observer has learned. The asking rent for the ninth-floor space was $45 a square foot.
The company, which prides itself Read More

Manhattan, Ho! Brooklyn Walentases Buy Manhattan Office Building from Moinian

David and Jed Walentas, the father-and-son real estate moguls whose Two Trees Management got its start decades ago in Soho, before abandoning it to craft Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood almost wholecloth, are buying a Manhattan office building, the only one in their portfolio.
The family is in contract to buy the 340,000-square-foot 50 West 23rd Street, an Read More

Condé Nast Signs an Agreement to Move Downtown

Condé Nast has signed a tentative agreement to move downtown to One World Trade Center, according to The New York Times.
The company will leave 800,000 square feet at 4 Times Square behind to anchor the new building, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, after its completion in 2013. The move will likely happen in Read More

CBRE Tapped to Move Prime Floors at 452 Fifth

Starting next spring, the tower floors of 452 Fifth Avenue will be available for lease, The Observer has learned. The space, spanning the 12th to the 30th floors, and totaling 300,000 square feet, will likely be one of the most-sought-after office plots in midtown.
CB Richard Ellis is representing IDB Group subsidiaries Property and Building Corporation Read More

Apple of The Eye! CBS Officially Going Steady with Midtown West

CBS Broadcasting will remain at the top of Hell's Kitchen for at least 13 more years. The network has renewed its lease on 281,896 square feet of office space in the 20-story building at 555 West 57th Street, near 11th Avenue. The deal lasts through Dec. 31, 2023.

Continuing to assert its dominance in Read More

Blitz! NFL Moves HQ Three Blocks North

The National Football League has signed a 20-year lease for a new headquarters three blocks north of its current digs.
Now located at 280 Park Avenue, between 48th and 49th streets, the NFL will move to 345 Park Avenue, between 51st and 52nd, according to a release. Starting in the third quarter of next year, it Read More

Billy Macklowe Officially Parts Ways with Dad, Starts Own Company

Billy Macklowe, the son of real estate great Harry Macklowe—who, in one of the boom's great gambles, famously bought a $7 billion office portfolio only to have to give much of it back to the bank in the throes of the recession, and to sell the GM Building to boot—has officially left his dad's company to form Read More

Chinese Broadcaster Xinhua Leases ‘Dramatic’ Top Floor of 1540 Broadway

Chinese broadcast company Xinhua has carved out a perch for itself atop 1540 Broadway, the Times Square tower that CB Richard Ellis Investors bought last year for $355 million.
According to a release issued Tuesday afternoon by CBRE, Xinhua has leased 18,600 square feet, the entire 44th floor, which it will use as both offices and Read More

Manhattan Office Vacancy Rate Drops, Thank 11 Times Square

A dollop of good news for commercial real estate observers—though, given recent economic history, all such dollops should be taken with a healthy grain of salt.
Midtown's Class A vacancy rate—a key indicator of office market health—dropped this month from 13.9 to 13.4 percent, according to brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle:
It was last year at this time Read More

House of Hoops Temple Coming to Herald Square

A House of Hoops—Nike and Footlocker's concept store/temple to all things basketball—will open a second New York City location at 11 West 34th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, according to someone involved in the transaction.
The first House of Hoops opened in Harlem, at 268 West 125th Street, in the fall of 2007, with a player-studded Read More

Cushman Considers Going Public, and Other Brokerage News

The new chief of commercial real estate titan Cushman & Wakefield said the majority owner of the beleaguered brokerage is considering taking it public, according to The New York Times:
One of the biggest question marks is the future of Cushman & Wakefield, the world's third-largest commercial real estate brokerage, according to National Real Estate Investor magazine. After Read More

Zoning Battle Brewing on Canal Street

Landlords want to upzone Canal Street so they can build taller buildings. Preservationists want to limit growth. Same old story. New setting: Chinatown.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, "A group of real-estate developers have commissioned a study to rethink Canal Street as they ratchet up a controversial effort to allow for taller buildings along Read More