The New York Observer » commercial real estate http://www.observer.com Just another WordPress site Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:32:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en High-Brow Coupon Concern Lands Union Square Digs If whipping out a crumpled coupon following dinner at Le Cirque doesn’t exactly appeal, this might be the start-up for you. E-coupon innovator Village Vines has landed its first grown-up office.

“When we went to see the space, it helped that the agent said, ‘I know what you guys are. I just used you!’” the tenant’s broker, Elliot Warren of The Kaufman Organization, told The Observer. Village Vines then successfully landed its first 2,500-square-foot permanent digs near Union Square for five years at 37 West 17th Street.


The company is less than a year old, so for the less technologically inclined, he explained the concept thusly: Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/06/high-brow-coupon-concern-lands-union-square-digs/ Gerald Kiley of Grubb & Ellis: The Fisherman of the Suburban Markets On a sun-kissed Thursday afternoon, Gerard Kiley arrived at Grubb & Ellis' new Manhattan headquarters. It was the broker's first visit to the Avenue of the Americas office, but it certainly wouldn't be his last.

Indeed, for a broker who focuses squarely on Westchester and Fairfield counties, the 25-year commercial real estate pro's thrice-weekly, 45-minute Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/commercial-observer/gerald-kiley-grubb-ellis-fisherman-suburban-markets Colorful Hunt Slonem Lands Near 10th Man of many mansions Hunt Slonem has garnished a new far West Side space.

The Southern painter-cum-interior designer has taken 22,500 square feet for 10 years at 509 West 34th Street, past 10th Avenue. The four-story industrial building over a parking garage has a few columns and windows on three sides, offering the perfect canvas for Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/colorful-hunt-slonem-lands-near-10th Twitter Snubs Soho, Takes Facebook Space on Madison Twitter, the Web's main repository of personal oversharing, political dissent and tasteless self-promotion, is donning a suit and tie.

The little blue bird has been perching in a spartan temporary New York City space since September, searching for the perfect spot for its first New York City headquarters. Now The Observer has learned that it Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/twitter-grows-abandons-soho Of King’s and Empire: College Wants 60K Feet in Malkin Tower Never mind the famed stair run, for once the race in the Empire State Bulding is for the bottom. King's College is negotiating to renew and expand to 60,000 square feet on the lower floors there.

The Christian liberal arts college currently houses its administrative offices and classroom space in 50,000 square feet on the Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/king-college-60k-renewal-empire-state-building MySpace Marketing Gurus Sextuple Space Big Fuel Communications, the braintrust behind MySpace's marketing campaign, are massively growing their Manhattan headquarters.

The social media marketing and branded content agency has taken 40,000 square feet at 40 West 23rd Street, which also houses Home Depot's Chelsea store. We should clarify they did some work for MySpace and Fox a few years ago, and also Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/myspace-marketing-gurus-sextuple-space The Top 20 Office Leases of 2010 "Banks started to feel a lot better, businesses started to stabilize," said CB Richard Ellis' Ken Meyerson, reflecting on 2010. "There was a risk of it starting to get better and better."

Mr. Meyerson, who helped broker 2010's largest lease for tenant Société Générale, was not alone in eyeing the recovery in the office-leasing market and Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/commercial-observer/top-20-leases-2010 Morning Roundup: A Novel Approach to Insider Trading
  • Someone at the Securities and Exchange Commission had the bright idea to stop targeting specific insider trades and instead try to bring down entire communities of Wall Street lawbreakers. This notion has been at play in last year's massive Galleon case and also yesterday's government raids on three big hedge funds. [WSJ]
  • There have been Read More

    ]]> http://www.observer.com/2010/wall-street/morning-roundup-novel-approach-insider-trading Could Park51 Kill Manhattan Real Estate? We've told you the Park 51 controversy is ugly and irrational, but worst of all, it could be costly.

    The controversy surrounding the "Ground Zero mosque" is driving away some Middle-Eastern investors from New York real estate, The Real Deal reports. The article recounts a recent apartment deal with a Saudi investor that Read More

    ]]>     http://www.observer.com/2010/real-estate/tk-1     Air China Lands at Empire State Building Air China, the official airline of the Communist regime, is moving into some swanky new space on the 69th floor of the Empire State Building. Apparently the looming threat of 15 Penn Plaza was just that, as Fred Posniak, a W&H Properties executive suggested in a release announcing the deal today.

    "International brand-name companies appreciate the Read More

    ]]>     http://www.observer.com/2010/real-estate/air-china-lands-empire-state-building     Your Office Is Shrinking If you've noticed your office feels smaller lately, it might not be your imagination.

    The average size of office transactions has fallen by about 50 percent since 1997, The Real Deal reports. That means it's time to get a little cuddlier with your co-workers, as employers replace private offices with shared spaces and open floor Read More

    ]]>     http://www.observer.com/2010/real-estate/your-office-shrinking     The Reformed Accountant When August DiRenzo reported to legendary Cushman & Wakefield honcho Jim Peters on his first day of work as a broker in the mid-1960s, the upstart asked a simple question.

    “O.K., what do I do?”

    “Look out the window,” said Mr. Peters, peering from his Cushman office tower, then located on Madison Avenue, 13 blocks south of Read More

    ]]>     http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/reformed-accountant     Commercial Mortgage Defaults Have Another Year Before Bottoming Out, Report Says If you work in commercial real estate, best to forget all that talk about an imminent economic recovery. The sad truth is that while the rest of the economy shows early signs of improvement, commercial real estate is proving the laggard.  

    Data released by research firm Real Estate Econometrics indicates that, nationwide, commercial and Read More

    ]]>     http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/commercial-mortgage-defaults-have-another-year-bottoming-out-report-says     The Rise and Falling of New York’s Busiest Building Buyer Two years ago, Broadway Partners was an empire on the march.

    They owned some of the country’s best Class A office properties—the 62-story Aon Center in Los Angeles, One City Centre in Houston, 522 Fifth Avenue in New York—but they were always searching for more. Led by founder and CEO Scott Lawlor, the faster Read More

    ]]>     http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/rise-and-fall-new-yorks-busiest-building-buyer     New York’s Most Exclusive Office Building In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Gobelins manufactory wove tapestries for Louis XIV, the absolutist French ruler, who espoused the theory of the divine right of kings. According to that theory, dauphins were not merely born lucky onto plush velvet thrones of ungodly wealth and power. No, they actually carried the mark, Read More

    ]]>     http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/new-yorks-most-exclusive-office-building