Commercial Breaks | The New York Observer

SoHo Properties Buys Chelsea Building for $45.7 M.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:45:22 -0500

SoHo Properties has invested in Chelsea.

Sharif El-Gamal, chairman and CEO of the real estate investment group, has dropped $45.7 million on the property at 31 West 27th Street, which PropertyShark describes as a 12-story, 108,594-square-foot office building.

"We just bought it for the income," Mr. El-Gamal told The Observer. "It's got great long-term leases, and the financing was really attractive. We have five years at a very attractive interest rate, and it's probably the best B...

Citing Albany Dysfunction, Rudin Says No to a Senator in Need

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:32:21 -0500

Bill Rudin, the civic-minded real estate billionaire, admired in New York for his family’s remarkable success, apparent functionality, and steadfast devotion to New York civic life, made a startling declaration on Wednesday morning at the Harvard Club.

“I got a call the other day from an Albany politician,” said Mr. Rudin, the chairman of the Association for a Better New York, speaking in his capacity as the head of one of New York real estate's...

Serenity Pow! Lawsuit Wallops Once-Serenely Confident Setai Condo

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:32:13 -0500

On Oct. 25, 2007, in a typically optimistic New York Sun column entitled, “All Signs Pointing Up in Downtown Manhattan,” Michael Stoler used the Setai at 40 Broad Street as one of many examples of the florescence of Lower Manhattan.

Josh Zamir, son of 40 Broad developer Asher Roshan Zamir, told Mr. Stoler that a condo buyer had agreed to the highest price ever for a Financial District condo, in this case the project's penthouse: $1,800 a...

Desigual? No, I Didn’t! Spanish Clothier Opening in Herald Square

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:13:53 -0500

Desigual, the Barcelona-based clothier whose use of geometric shapes and squiggly lines resembles something a preternaturally talented teenager might concoct, is opening a store in Herald Square, its first New York storefront (indeed, its first American storefront) outside of Soho.

Desigual has signed a lease for the old Baker Shoes retail space at 362 Fifth Avenue, at 34th Street, according to industry sources. This just months after Desigual took the old Kira Plastinina space at...

Gural Sells Stake in Flatiron Building (Updated)

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:33:44 -0500

Newmark Knight Frank Chairman Jeffrey Gural and his partners have sold a stake in the Flatiron Building for $51.8 million, according to city records dated Oct. 28.

The buyer is listed as Michelangelo Flatiron Building Investment LLC, with an address at 805 Third Avenue. The LLC is 100 percent owned by the Michelangelo Fondo, which, in turn, is 100 percent owned by the Sorgente Group, headed in the United States by Veronica Mainetti. Sorgente already holds a...

GM Building Naming Rights Officially Up for Grabs

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:12:15 -0500

The naming rights for the GM Building, one of the rarest opportunities in New York real estate, are officially in play.

During last week's third-quarter investors call, Boston Properties president Douglas Linde included in his prepared remarks the following: "We can report that we were able to retain General Motors in 114,000 square feet for 10 years at 767 Fifth Avenue, the GM Building. As part of the lease, we recaptured the right to name the building in...

Avon's New HQ! Mega-Lease Out at 777 Third

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:40:33 -0400

Avon employees who commute on the F train, be forewarned. The makeup company known for its eponymous, door-knocking ladies, and, of course, for its $10 billion in annual revenue, looks to be ditching the West Side for the East, with a 15-year lease out for a new, 250,000-square-foot U.S. headquarters at the William Kaufman Organization’s shiny glass skyscraper at 777 Third Avenue, according to industry sources. If finalized this year, it will be one...

Avon Close to Mega-Deal at 777 Third Avenue

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:15:25 -0400

Avon, the make-up company known for its eponymous ladies, and, of course, its $10 billion in annual revenue, has a 15-year lease out for new, 250,000-square-foot U.S.headquarters at the William Kaufman Organization's shiny glass skyscraper at 777 Third Avenue, according to an industry source.

Neither Jon Zuckerman, of CB Richard Ellis, nor Dale Schlather, of Cushman & Wakefield, who are co-brokering the deal for Avon, nor Jones Lang LaSalle's Peter Riguardi, who represents the landlord,...

Cablevision Renews at Moinian’s 530 Fifth

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:50:58 -0400

His reputation for money troubles notwithstanding, Joe Moinian has managed to hold on to a marquee tenant.

The Dolan family’s Cablevision has renewed for seven years the entire sixth and 17th floors, totaling nearly 45,000 square feet, at Mr. Moinian’s 26-story 530 Fifth Avenue.

The Bethpage, Long Island–based Cablevision, which owns the Knicks and Newsday, uses the Fifth Avenue space to house advertising teams.

Howard Kesseler, of Newmark Knight Frank, represented Mr. Moinian in talks with Cushman...

Newmark Knight Frank Pounds Its Chest

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:46:24 -0400

Jimmy Kuhn, president of brokerage Newmark Knight Frank, was in a chipper mood on Monday morning. And who could blame him? New York commercial real estate may be about as cadaverous a field as New York media, but Newmark has been winning some notable battles in the ceaseless blood feud between city brokerages.

Newmark has poached yet another building agency from one of its rivals, winning the leasing responsibilities for the Blackstone Group’s 34-story tower...

New Jewish School to Rise on West End Avenue

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:04:49 -0400

The Abraham Joshua Heschel School – a Jewish private school named for the late theological luminary (the same theologian after whom Missouri officials recently wanted to rename a highway as a slap in the face to the group of neo-Nazis who maintain it) – is building a more than 120,000-square-foot school on 61st Street and West End Avenue.

On Oct. 14, the school filed plans with the Department of Buildings for a new, nine-story building at 246 West...

Win an Office for a Year!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:50:06 -0400

Yes, that office to the right, or something quite like it, could be yours for a year! For free!

The clever folks at Regus, a company that specializes in short-term office leases, have decided to launch a sweepstakes. The lucky winner will get a choice of office in one of Regus' 18 Manhattan locations for a full year, free of charge.

If this sounds like some cynical cry for attention, well, perhaps it is. But it's...

Harry Macklowe Tells a Joke, Part II

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:08:34 -0400

And he does it again.

Back in July, developer Harry Macklowe made his debut on the very small screen, telling a knee-slapper of a joke for the ever-amusing Web site, OldJewsTellingJokes.com.

Now he's done it again. Or, more precisely, the Web site, whose makers taped Mr. Macklowe telling multiple jokes a while back, has, after a three-month break, posted a second Macklowe howler.

In this bit, Mr. Macklowe regales the audience with the following:

Sam and Becky are...

Mosler’s Act II

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:17:43 -0400

On Oct. 15, employees at Cushman & Wakefield received an internal memo from CEO Bruce Mosler, which began, “To my colleagues: I am very pleased to announce that as of January 1, 2010, I will transition to Co-Chairman of the Board, alongside John C. Cushman III. The Board of Directors has established a search committee to select a new CEO, and I will continue in that capacity until a successor is named.”

Few were surprised....

Amusement Shark

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:21:54 -0400

In June, Six Flags, owner of 20 amusement parks (frankly, the notion of willfully getting on machines that simulate death has never much struck us as particularly “amusing”) across North America, declared bankruptcy.

This bankruptcy wasn’t one of those out-of-the-blue deals. It was what they call a pre-negotiated bankruptcy, the final phase in a plan to restructure Six Flags’ troubled finances and unburden itself of a staggering $1.8 billion in debt.
And so, at the...

Cushman & Wakefield CEO Mosler's Note to Staff

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:53:02 -0400

The Observer has obtained the memo departing CEO Bruce Mosler emailed Thursday to the Cushman & Wakefield staff. Earlier Thursday, The Observer broke the news that Mr. Mosler, after nearly five years as president and CEO of the commercial real estate brokerage, would assume the co-chairmanship of the board.

The memo is below:

To my colleagues: I am very pleased to announce that as of January 1, 2010, I will transition to Co-Chairman of...

Leona Helmsley Trust Sheds Two Manhattan Properties

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:25:06 -0400

The estate holding the assets of the one-time hotelier and reputed Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley sold two properties on Manhattan's East Side on Oct. 1, according to city records.

The properties in question are a ground-floor 4,178-square-foot retail condominium at 760 Third Avenue and the nearby 144 East 48th Street, a 114,500-square-foot apartment building between Third and Lexington avenues. A partnership with principals in Mamaroneck and Los Angeles bought the two properties for a...

How Keen Is Manhattan Valley?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:10:51 -0400

An unexpected alliance between a powerful developer and a neighborhood retirement home is causing an uproar in the Manhattan Valley section of the famously ornery Upper West Side.

Enigmatic developer Joseph Chetrit and Jewish Home Lifecare, which has a campus at 120 West 106th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, have decided to swap properties.

In exchange for its 106th Street campus, the retirement home will receive both cash and the right to develop a 22-story...

Sales? More Like Snails!

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:04:07 -0400

The commercial real estate cataclysm has proven false yet another real estate truism: the long-held belief that even in the most desertlike of investment sales markets, at least 1.6 percent of the 27,649 elevator and walk-up apartment buildings and retail condominiums and office buildings in Manhattan will sell every year, thanks to unavoidable (and generally unfortunate) reasons like death, divorce and the dissolution of business partnerships.

No longer.

“We’re going to break through that 1.6 percent...

Cote D'Ivoire Drops $8 M. on New East Side Offices

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:28:58 -0400

The government of Ivory Coast, a country where nearly half the population makes do with less than $1.36 a day, has dropped $8 million on new offices for its Permanent Mission to the United Nations, according to city deeds.

Alcide Djedje, the mission's ambassador, signed the deed on Sept. 30 for a commercial condominium at 800 Second Avenue, an 18-story office tower between First and Second avenues owned by Philips International.

The Ivory Coast is the...

Eliot Spitzer Personally Sells Murray Hill Garage for $10.28 M.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:15:57 -0400

For all the talk of a return to politics, former Governor Eliot Spitzer remains ensconced in his family's muscular real estate business.

Last week, Mr. Spitzer sold a parking garage underneath The Corinthian condomium built by his dad Bernie in 1987. The price: $10.275 million, an apparently handsome deal for the governor-turned-real estate mogul.

This follows his purchase over the summer of a coveted Washington, D.C., office building for $180 million.

Mr. Spitzer did not respond to...

Real Estate Titans Gather, Express Commercial Confidence

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:00:06 -0400

Amid increasingly apocalyptic prophecies about the fate of New York’s commercial property market, more than a dozen “Masters of Real Estate” convened at the Metropolitan Club on Tuesday for an eponymous conference hosted by The Observer devoted to making sense of the market’s troubles. The major players appear to have emerged from the recessionary trenches leaner, shell-shocked, and hungry for deals, though some panelists were more upbeat than others about the prospects for...

Memories of the Way We Were … Hopeful Stats a Year Since Lehman

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:30:04 -0400

There are lots of memories—many of them apparently traumatic—in that glass-encased and forever under-heated back room at Michael’s, the midtown power lunch-counter where Cushman & Wakefield executives host quarterly market briefings for the press.

“It’s hard to believe, but it was about a year ago when we came here, and we didn’t know what was going on,” reflected Ken McCarthy, Cushman’s managing director for research, on Tuesday morning.

Mr. McCarthy was right. It kind of is...

WNET Looks to Go Dark at 450 West 33rd Street

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:19:28 -0400

Channel 13 has hired a broker to dispose of its cavernous offices on the far West Side, and to find it new offices that measure roughly half the size of the old ones.

Right now, Channel 13, also known as WNET, produces public TV like Worldfocus and Bill Moyers Journal in its 200,000-square-foot studios and offices within the 1.6 million–square–foot media megalopolis at 450 West 33rd Street, the building that Broadway Partners bought for an...

Sturner Recapitalizes 1412 Broadway

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:41:45 -0400

“We are happy to report that we have concluded the purchase and recapitalization of 1412 Broadway,” began a recent email sent by Murray Hill Properties owner Norman Sturner to his investors.

This is the 400,000-square-foot, Class B garment-district building at 39th Street that Mr. Sturner and his partners bought for $177.5 million in December 2006, right at the height of the frenzied real estate market.

After searching for new investors from within the ranks of New...

Leases Pending for Part of Midtown’s Biggest Sublease Space

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:42:04 -0400

Two new tenants are chipping away at midtown’s largest block of sublease space.

Both the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and law firm Cozen O’Connor have leases pending for a total of three floors, or 69,000 of the 400,000 square feet that JPMorgan Chase is trying to get off its books at the coveted 277 Park Avenue, according to three industry sources.

The Banking Group has a lease out for one of 277 Park’s 23,000-square-foot...

Dawn Over Commercial Manhattan?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:58:19 -0400

Colliers ABR director of research Robert Sammons isn’t some sort of sunny-eyed optimist whose overly cheery outlook immediately transforms horrific markets into “challenging” ones, or plummeting rents into “competitive asking prices.”

So it’s kind of meaningful when Mr. Sammons puts out an optimistic report. Which is exactly what he’s done.

After leading his Manhattan Monthly with a pointed reminder that the market will not be truly peachy anytime soon -- Class A vacancy rates climbed in September...

Mazel Tov! Young Rabbi Inks Deal For Soho’s Only Synagogue

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:31:49 -0400

Soho has a shul.

After four years of wandering in the desert of New York real estate, a 32-year-old rabbi who employs a modern aesthetic to attract the neighborhood’s hip, and often lapsed, Jewish set has finally found a semi-permanent home in the five-story, red-brick building at 43 Crosby Street.

Rabbi Dovi Scheiner signed the 12-year lease on Sept. 15—nearly eight years to the day after 9/11, which was also, in a rather unfortunate happenstance, his...

Insurance Firm Inks 109K-Foot Deal in Trumps’ 40 Wall

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:42:24 -0400

After scouring Lower Manhattan for office space, and even venturing across the East River to check out the compellingly priced digs at Bruce Ratner’s MetroTech (compelling, but not compelling enough), Country-Wide Insurance Company has decided to stay put at 40 Wall Street, signing a long-term lease renewal for a stunning 109,000 square feet in what is a largely moribund downtown market.

(Nota bene: The third-generation, family-owned property-casualty insurance company Country-Wide is entirely distinct from...

Hank Greenberg’s I-Firm Takes 120K Feet in Zuckerman’s 399 Park

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:37:16 -0400

The investment firm belonging to Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, of AIG notoriety, last week signed a new, meaty lease for 120,000 square feet of old Lehman Brothers office space at 399 Park Avenue.

C. V. Starr & Co. already has 20,000 square feet of offices at 399 Park, so this new lease is something of a mega-expansion, and also something of a consolidation, as the firm will also be relocating employees from about 90,000 square feet...

Reader’s Digest Wants 100K Feet

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:01:46 -0400

Reader’s Digest, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has hired Cushman & Wakefield to find about 100,000 square feet of new office space, according to industry sources.

The media conglomerate, which publishes 94 magazines worldwide, including the eponymous Reader’s Digest, has offices “all over the place,” as one source put it. “All over the place” includes offices in Chappaqua, Westchester, as well as more than 70,000 square feet at the Sapirs’ 260 Madison...

GM Picks GM Building

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:28:31 -0400

General Motors’ torturous search for a new home in New York City has finally reached an end. And, oh, what an anticlimactic end it is.

General Motors has signed a 114,300-square-foot, 10-year lease renewal at, you guessed it, Boston Properties’ General Motors Building, at 767 Fifth Avenue, the white-marble shaft that has borne its name since completion in 1968.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

General Motors filed for bankruptcy on June 1, the very day...

Debtor's Prison Holds No Place for Kent Swig: A Bankruptcy Case Study

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:47:20 -0400

On Sept. 15, developer Kent Swig filed an affidavit with the Manhattan Supreme Court in which he claimed, "I cannot, out of my personal proceeds, satisfy a money judgment of $32,432,288.87 without being subject to extreme financial hardship. I do not have access to $28 million in cash or liquid assets and, if the Judgment is enforced against me at this time, I will likely have to file for personal bankruptcy protection. This will...

Salmon Paper Swimming Uptown

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:11:08 -0400

The New York Observer, which over the past decade has traipsed across Manhattan, from an Upper East Side townhouse to a prewar Flatiron office building, is moving to midtown west. In the first half of 2010, the paper is scheduled to relocate to 321 West 44th Street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues, a 10-story office building whose ground floor is leased by Birdland Jazz Club.

Jared Kushner owns both The New York Observer and its...

Bring on the Papadum Chips! Trader Joe's in Talks for Sixth Avenue Spot

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:01:47 -0400

Ever since Trader Joe’s opened its first New York City store on 14th Street in 2006, the act of shopping for organic frozen raspberries and dark-chocolate-covered almonds has come to resemble less a civilized shopping experience and more a death match between grimacing bobos wielding narrow metal shopping carts.

If all goes according to plan, that will soon change. For the better.

Trader Joe’s is in discussions to open another low-priced, high-quality food...

Canada Wants as Much as 100K Feet

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:08:53 -0400

On Nov. 14, 1997, when the government of Canada opened its brand-new Consulate General offices on the mezzanine and concourse levels of 1251 Avenue of the Americas, the country’s trade minister and two uniformed mounties traveled down south for the occasion.

The Canadians unveiled an 80-square-foot artwork by Inuit artist Irene Avaalaaqiaq, and Mayor Giuliani declared Nov. 14 Canada Day in New York. Or so claims a press release in Lexis Nexis.

Be that as it...

Price Check: Durst Fetner Pays $42 M. for 1212 Fifth Avenue (Updated)

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:39:12 -0400

One of the most puzzling things about reporting building sales is the unwillingness of developers to reveal the prices they've paid for their newfound prizes. Their reticence might be understandable, were it not for the fact that the city's Department of Finance makes the deeds available on its Web site just weeks after they change hands.

Case in point: 1212 Fifth Avenue.

On Sept. 15, The Commercial Observer broke the news that Durst Fetner Residential had...

Durst Files Plans for Off-Again, On-Again Esquire Private School (Updated)

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:08:30 -0400

Former Esquire owner Christopher Whittle's plans for a Durst-developed, for-profit private school on the far, far West Side, which were hobbled by the collapse of financing, are back on track now that Mr. Whittle has found new funding for the project.

Douglas Durst revealed the project's resumption to the Commercial Observer's Jotham Sederstrom in an interview that ran on Tuesday. And Thursday, Jody Durst filed plans with the city's Department of Buildings to erect a...

Stanley Chera in Contract To Buy Stake in St. Regis Retail Condo

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:19:04 -0400

Developer Stanley Chera, whose Crown Acquisitions has been shopping for real estate since at least June, when it lost out to Vornado and Syms in a bid to buy Filene's Basement (and all of its attendant real estate), is now in contract to buy the St. Regis retail condo at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street from Starwood Hotels, according to sources familiar with the transaction.

Mr. Chera is rumored to be partnering with...

Soho a Go for Sobral

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:23:10 -0400

Soho rents, once the domain of an exorbitantly exclusive few, are, well, still exorbitant and, yes, still exclusive, but perhaps slightly less so—less enough that a few new tenants are taking the plunge. Among them is Sobral, the Brazilian jeweler who just snagged a lease at 412 West Broadway.

The 10-year lease for 1,750 square feet includes 500 square feet on the ground floor, second floor and lower level, plus a 250-square-foot mezzanine.

Food Court Press

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:20:46 -0400

The Riese Organization extended its 12,500-square-foot hold on Penn Station, where its 1 Penn Plaza food court, closed for renovation since April, reopened last week. With a litany of nationally branded franchises (Pizza Hut, Nathan’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, to list a few) and several self-developed concepts (Lindy’s, Charley O’s) to its name, Riese is the city’s largest restaurant operator, and its neon signage is stamped across high-profile locations from Times Square corners to a recent...

For One Developer, a Terrace Was Essential

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:13:17 -0400

The demand? A terrace. The answer? Two stunning views of Central Park. Hotel and resort developer Coastal Development wanted a room with a view—a terrace, to be exact.

After an exhaustive search by Peter Buckley of Colliers ABR (apparently, only 18 Manhattan office buildings feature balconies), it turned out the solution was just a block away from Coastal’s former quarters on East 57th Street.

The space in the Paramount Group–owned building boasts not...

Booze Giant Diageo Wants 50K Feet

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:43:10 -0400

Diageo, the London-based maker of all spirits Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Baileys, Cuervo, Tanqueray, J&B and Captain Morgan—and a firm that has human nature’s self-medicating tendencies to thank for its ability to weather the recession with relative aplomb—is scouring the Manhattan office market for new digs.

(For what it’s worth: According to the firm’s Web site, “The word Diageo comes from the Latin for day (dia) and the Greek for world (geo). We take...

57th Street Skyscraper Up in the Air

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:41:19 -0400

A developer’s vision for a stunning, hourglass-shaped skyscraper at the corner of 57th Street and Second Avenue is moving forward, albeit in an ill-defined form.

The city’s Educational Construction Fund, which is working with luxury residential developer World-Wide Group on the project, filed plans with the Department of Buildings on Sept. 10 for the project’s first phase: an 11-story building, containing 240,549 square feet for the two public schools originally located at the development...

Class A Leasing Goes from Bad to Less Bad

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:39:48 -0400

Manhattan’s high-end leasing market has gone from bad to slightly less bad.

The Class A vacancy rate, for example, fell from a bad 12 percent in July to a slightly less bad 11.8 percent in August, according to a monthly report from Colliers ABR. Accordingly, average asking rents for Class A space rose a whopping 19 cents, from $64.17 per square foot in July to $64.36 in August.

Don’t get too excited.

Worst- and Best-Case Scenarios for Commercial Recovery

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:39:11 -0400

What is the congenitally optimistic real estate professional to do when confronted with a Moody’s report titled: “For CMBS, Recovery Appears Through a Glass, Darkly—and Slowly.”

Apparently, so downcast was Moody’s senior vice president Daniel Rubock that he had to resort to poetic language—and, later on, a LeBron James metaphor!—to articulate his predictions. And his conclusion? A rebound in commercial real estate “will not be any time soon.”

“Our reckoning of the best...

The Irony of the Stuy Town Tenant Suit

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:50:00 -0400

The extraordinarily significant Stuyvesant Town lawsuit now pending in New York State’s highest court has been quick to galvanize opinion in a familiar divide, pitting advocates of affordable housing against rent-hungry landlords. With the fate of rent regulation rules at stake in the 13,000-unit apartment complex, many elected officials have publicly backed the tenants’ position—hailing an earlier court ruling in their favor as “a victory for the City”—and all the landlord groups have been...

Report: Commercial Real Estate Should Sit Tight--It's Gonna Be a While

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:43:43 -0400

What is the congenitally optimistic real estate professional to do when confronted with a Moody’s report entitled thusly: “For CMBS, Recovery Appears Through a Glass, Darkly – and Slowly.”

Apparently, so downcast was Moody’s senior VP Daniel Rubock that he had to resort to poetic language – and, later on, a LeBron James metaphor! – to articulate his predictions. And his conclusion? A rebound in commercial real estate “will not be any time soon.”

Incomparable

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:46:37 -0400

For the first time in its 113-year history, the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s most powerful lobby and one of the city’s few remaining old boys’ clubs, will hand over its chairmanship to a member of—egad!—the opposite sex.

The board’s executive committee on Sept. 8 officially named Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of the New York tri-state region for CB Richard Ellis, the city’s largest commercial real estate firm, chairman of the board....

Lease Beat: 9.9.09

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:38:49 -0400

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