26
Joe Moinian: A day in the life
60
Setting records in South B’klyn
77
Not-so-gritty East Village
125
The other Kushner making big deals
125
Brokers who date brokers
THEREALDEAL N EW YO R K R E A L E S TAT E N E W S
www.TheRealDeal.com
Vol. 10 No. 11 November 2012 $3.00
A rabbi on From Russia with cash the ropes
After Pinto’s arrest, attention turns to his NYC real estate BY DAVID JONES Federal investigators are speaking to investors involved in projects conSPECIAL REPORT nected to Rabbi Pinto, the spiritual advisor to a slew of high-profile industry players, who was arrested in Israel last month. They’re trying to figure out what happened to millions in investments he’s linked to.
The barbell effect Demand for starter apartments and high-end units in Manhattan is up, but the middle of the market is lagging. Between the third quarters of 2010 and 2012, sales for apartments on the bookends of the market increased, but dropped for midsized apartments. See page 14.
Hotel royalty Ranking Manhattan’ s hoteliers by # of rooms
See story on page 54
Condo vs. condo
Office tenants dump space on Sixth Ave.
Inside the world of NYC’s billionaire Russian real estate buyers — from assassination attempts to the sources of their vast wealth
BY KATHERINE CLARKE The perennially posh Upper East Side is about to get a slew of new highly anticipated residential towers. TRD matched those projects up against each other to uncover their pros and cons.
Welcome to the world of the superrich RusElizabeth Lee Sample has brokered $1.5 billion sian buyer, a rarefied and red-hot segment of of real estate in her career. But it wasn’t until she the New York real estate market. It’s a world began working with high-end Russian buyers with private planes, cars that cost as much as that she found herself leaving the some houses and entourages Four Seasons Hotel one day with EATURE TORY of bodyguards (understanda deposit check for $2.5 million able given some have survived burning a hole in her pocket. Her buyers found a assassination attempts). But perhaps its most penthouse they wanted, but were heading out of notable component is its emphasis on discretown so they wrote a check on the spot. tion — don’t ask what’s in the bank account.
See story on page 50
See story on page 58
A match-up of the UES’s new residential buildings
BY ADAM PIORE
F
A look at the most influential nabe nags battling builders
See page 126.
BY LEIGH KAMPING-CARDER In many ways, the city’s NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) groups embody NY’s fighting spirit. This month, TRD examined the track records of the most influential neighborhood groups to find out how successful they’ve been at taking on developers and what strategies they employ to do so. See story on page 62
Available office space is piling up on a prime stretch of Sixth Avenue in Midtown. A TRD analysis looked at the trend and at the buildings dumping space. See page 22. One World Trade Center
S
NYC’s powerful Is the tech boom real? NIMBY players A breakdown of Internet office leases and
Maurice Mann: I was thrown under the bus
Community banks have had post-recession staying power. Their market share for commercial loans is 19%, up from 6% in ’07. See page 16.
AT A GLANCE
See story on page 70
BY C.J. HUGHES Record tourists. Soaring occupancy. There’s no doubt the hotel market is going strong. This month, TRD surveyed the Manhattan landscape to determine who owns the most hotel rooms. Host Hotels & Resorts came out on top. Find out who else made the cut.
FACT
the brokers winning over the big clients
BY ADAM PINCUS Is Manhattan’s tech leasing boom for real? That largely depends on how it’s defined. The problem is that the real estate industry is having difficulty defining it. This month, TRD dissected the tech-leasing craze to see which companies are taking space, what kinds of leases they’re signing and which brokers are doing the deals. One key Tech firms on the prowl for big blocks of office space finding: tech leasing is being driven by short-term deals, which is makMicrosoft: 400k sq. feet ing the industry seem especially acAmazon: 100k sq. feet tive. In addition, we checked out where tech moguls from the likes of Media Ocean: 100k sq. feet Facebook and Google live in NYC. Usablenet: 50k sq. feet See story on page 37
Smaller deals at One World Trade Leasing at the World Trade Center site has been slower in 2012 than it was in 2011. But the lead broker for 1 WTC said owners there are subdividing some of the space to lure in smaller tenants. See page 46.
NYC’s billionaire club Ten NYC real estate titans made the Forbes list of richest Americans. Find out how your favorite billionaires fared compared to last year, and who fell off this year’s list. See page 74.
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RUSSIA GRAPHIC BY WPVORTEX; MANN PHOTOGRAPH BY MARC SCRIVO; ONE WORLD TRADE CENTER PHOTOGRAPH BY DEREK ZAHEDI.