The Real Deal June 2013 by The Real Deal

A fight in Flushing

Angel architect, devil developer

Pocket listings on the rise

Urban Compass comes on strong

112

A home that passes the smell test

THEREALDEAL

www.TheRealDeal.com

Holliday time The SL Green CEO is eating Vornado’s lunch

BY HITEN SAMTANI Since Marc Holliday joined SL Green 15 years ago, the company has mushroomed from a mid-sized landlord into a behemoth. And now it’s surging even farther ahead of Vornado and other rivals.

N EW YO R K R E A L E S TATE N E W S

Vol. 11 No. 6 June 2013 $3.00

Top of the NYC heap The Manhattan agents selling the most property Manhattan’s Top 10 listing agents include (clockwise from top): John Burger, Serena Boardman, Paula Del Nunzio, Deborah Grubman, Leonard Steinberg and Carrie Chiang

The Hamptons priciest sales

AT A GLANCE An unusually high number of “hybrid” apartment-hunters, who are open to both buying and renting, are making the always-tight summer rental market even more competitive. See page 16.

Luxury sellers discount homes to get deals done

BY C. J. HUGHES Luxury homes in the Hamptons are still selling for less than their boom-time SPECIAL REPORT prices. The 10 biggest Hamptons sales of the past year ranged from $17.5 to $45 million — high prices, but far short of the massive Manhattan run-up.

No optimism in office leasing Americans are feeling better about the country’s financial outlook, but companies in the city are still cutting office leasing costs to keep profits healthy. See page 24.

See story on page 62

From Foster, a new kind of skyscraper

Crane control

A look at the most obstinate union battling developers

See story on page 38

State Division of Licensing records show 952 complaints filed against real estate brokers in 2012. Half involved “untrustworthiness.” See page 34.

“Hybrid” clients look for sales and rentals

See story on page 30

BY DAVID JONES The crane operators’ Local 14 is one of the most powerful unions in North America, and some say a firewall in the fight for workers’ rights. But to New York City developers, the group is blocking what could be a full-fledged building boom.

FACT

BY HAYLEY KAPLAN dustry. While nearly all of Manhattan’s top 10 broWith a bevy of über-pricey homes on the market — kers have fewer properties on the market than last a Pierre Hotel triplex is listed for $125 year, most have a higher dollar value of F EATURE S TORY listings, according to The Real Deal’s million — Manhattan’s top brokers aren’t feeling the inventory squeeze as much as their annual ranking of Manhattan’s top 75 listing agents. colleagues in other segments of the residential in- See story on page 43

Architect Norman Foster’s design for the new 425 Park Avenue could change the way New York builds office towers, says critic James Gardner. See page 66. 425 Park Avenue

Manhattan vs. Brooklyn New York City’s Brooklyn home prices are climbing faster than Manhattan’s, closing the gap between them

Ken Horn on dating co-workers See page 114.

PHOTO CREDITS ARE HERE

BY KATHERINE CLARKE With sale prices and rents rising sharply in Brooklyn, many home-seekers find that popular neighborhoods across the river no longer come at much of a Sizing up the boroughs discount from Manhattan. This Brooklyn vs. Manhattan month, TRD analyzed market price growth: 14% vs. 6% data to find out how prices in prime Brooklyn neighbor- Williamsburg vs. Lower East Side prices: $585K vs. $490K hoods compare to their Manhattan counterparts. The reBrooklyn vs. Manhattan rents: sults may surprise you. $2,560 vs. $3,195 See story on page 52

new investors

Meet the most active young firms snapping up property BY ADAM PINCUS As New York recovered from the paralyzing real estate downturn, scores of investors launched companies and funds to scoop up distressed assets here. New firms like Meadow Partners and Imperium Capital have since succeeded in landing big deals and cobbling together portfolios, despite stiff competition. This month, TRD looks at the most active new players. See story on page 55

Tech firms struggle to find space Tech firms are the darlings of New York City office leasing, but their unique needs still make it hard for startups to find space. See page 18.

www.TheRealDeal.com

TOP AGENTS ILLUSTRATION BY WARREN GEBERT; HORN PHOTO BY MARC SCRIVO

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Premier Medical Office Space in the Heart of Carnegie Hill for Lease Park Avenue Medical Arts Center 62 East 88th Street (Between Madison & Park Avenues) · Unique large block of medical space off of Park Avenue · Exclusive new medical lobby with high-end finishes · Space built-to-suit based upon generous work letter · Private semi-circular driveway · Public garage across the street Lower Level

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Paul Wexler Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker, The Corcoran Group 212.836.1075 | plw@corcoran.com Simone Healthcare Development Group, a division of Simone Development Companies, partners with healthcare providers to create turnkey ambulatory medical facilities in the New York metropolitan area. The company establishes long-term relationships with healthcare providers that encompass every aspect of locating, designing, building, and operating a new facility. By undertaking expansion in partnership with Simone Healthcare Development, healthcare providers reduce their expenditures on real estate services.

Equal Housing Opportunity. The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker owned and operated by NRT LLC. All information furnished regarding property for sale or rent or regarding financing is from sources deemed reliable, but Corcoran makes no warranty or representation as to the accuracy thereof. All property information is presented subject to errors, omissions, price changes, changed property conditions, and withdrawal of the property from the market, without notice. All dimensions provided are approximate. To obtain exact dimensions, Corcoran advises you to hire a qualified architect or engineer.

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Equal Housing Opportunity. The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker owned and operated by NRT LLC.

Highlights UN VEILED

J U N E

“Hybrid” homeseekers

Silicon Alley oops

Fracas in Flushing

When erected in 1952, the United Nations Secretariat symbolized the latest advances in curtain wall construction.

But rapid deterioration by the elements soon masked the transparency envisioned in the original design. Only after HLW International and R.A. Heintges & Associates undertook its replacement as part of a 21st-century update has the facade’s intended splendor been revealed. Now, along with adding the energy efficiency and blast-resistance required by its prominence, it gives the city a longdenied glimpse of the grandeur that helped shape global architecture in its day.

Transforming design into reality

2 0 1 3

Would-be buyers turn to rentals in tight market.

Tech firms may be Bloomberg’s darlings, but they face office-leasing challenges. Not everyone’s a fan of the plan to bring a new soccer stadium to Queens. Cary Tamarkin

Flushing Meadows

Time with Tamarkin

Companies cut office costs

In their words

Builder Cary Tamarkin has “an angel architect on one shoulder and a devil developer on the other.”

The humming economy has barely budged Manhattan office leasing.

This month’s funniest and most insightful comments on real estate.

A day with Adrienne The Marketing Directors CEO and founder Adrienne Albert on boot camp for agents and saving the world with Bruce Willis.

Holliday season In recent years, SL Green has surged ahead of its competitors. CEO Marc Holliday talked to TRD about taking deals personally. Marc Holliday

For help achieving the goals of your next project, contact the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York.

Publisher of Metals in Construction 211 E 43 ST | NY, NY 10017 | 212-697-5554 | www.ominy.org

Who’s gonna make me?

A more perfect union?

Urban Compass bets big on NYC

Ed Christian, president of Local 14

The state’s new advertising rules for real estate agents may be difficult to enforce.

Local 14, the all-powerful crane operators’ union, says it’s willing to negotiate with developers.

Can the well-funded real estate startup succeed where others have failed?

Manhattan’s top listing agents Sky-high asking prices are insulating luxury brokers from the inventory squeeze, according to TRD’s annual ranking of agents by the total dollar value of their listings. Design Architect, Architect of Record: HLW International Architect of Record, Facade: R.A. Heintges & Associates Photo: UN CMP/John Woodruff and Peter Brown

8 June 20132012 www.TheRealDeal.com October www.TheRealDeal.com

The not-so-outer borough Brooklyn home prices are rising faster than Manhattan’s, narrowing the gap between the two. www.TheRealDeal.com March 2012 00

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Highlights continued new investors 55 NYC’s Meet the most active young

UP STAGED

investors in New York real estate.

priciest sales 62 Hamptons Luxury sellers on the East End sold for discounts in the yearend rush.

Timothy Yantz, left, and Jeffrey Kaplan of Meadow Partners

Revelers mingling at the anniversary bash

TRD’s 10th anniversary fête A photo gallery of the industry players who turned out for a red-carpet affair at the Gansevoort Meatpacking NYC hotel.

new kind of skyscraper 66 AArchitecture critic James Gardner: Lord Norman Foster’s new 425 Park may transform the way NYC builds office towers.

68 Eero Saarinen is a tough act to follow. But when Lincoln Center sought space to build a home for its LCT3 program by adding onto his 1965 Vivian Beaumont opus, it found H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture right for the part. Opting to locate the new stage atop the existing theater—a design made possible by using lightweight steel trusses as exterior walls—the architects were able to create the longspan spaces needed for theatrical productions while giving theatergoers a fresh vantage point from which to view both emerging playwrights and Lincoln Center’s exciting 21stcentury encore.

In the heights With the Barclays Center now open, prices are up in Prospect Heights and neighboring Crown Heights.

112

Checking in with brokers to take the pulse of the apartment market.

By opening their on-the-market homes to film crews, sellers — and brokers — make big bucks.

Tracking rents and vacancy figures in Manhattan’s three office districts.

National Market Report Reports from around the country on significant developments and trends.

The Deal Sheet A roundup of office and retail leases, building buys and financing.

For help achieving the goals of your next project, contact the Steel Institute of New York.

HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”

112

Development Updates

Clean-up crew Commercial brokerage CPEX turns a tidy profit with its highend housekeeping service.

An update of the construction and sales status of projects around the city.

108

114

Calendar of Events Check out this month’s activities.

The Closing with Ken Horn

Architect: H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture Engineer: Severud Associates Photo: Francis Dzikowski/Esto

Residential Market Report

Commercial Market Report

Lights, camera, profit

Structural Steel Right for any application

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110

The developer on buying the Woolworth Building, growing up in Crown Heights and selling gelato.

Comings & Goings The stories behind the latest job moves and company announcements.

112

We Heard A lighter look at industry buzz.

10 June October 2013 2012 www.TheRealDeal.com www.TheRealDeal.com

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212.605.9381 charlie.attias@corcoran.com SEARCH BY WEB# ON

THE REAL DEAL N E W YO R K R E A L E S TAT E N E W S PUBLISHER Amir Korangy EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Stuart W. Elliott MANAGING EDITOR Jill Noonan DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR Candace Taylor EDITORIAL DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Melanie Gray

Whether you need to buy or sell a building having a real estate broker that knows the local players is key - the buyers and the sellers. You need an intensely dedicated broker who is still on the job long after the lights have gone out elsewhere.

WEB EDITOR Leigh Kamping-Carder ART DIRECTORS Derek Zahedi, Ronald Gross SENIOR REPORTER Adam Pincus

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REPORTERS Katherine Clarke, Guelda Voien, Hayley Kaplan CONTRIBUTORS C.J. Hughes, David Jones, Adam Piore EDITORIAL OPERATIONS MANAGER Linden Lim WEB PRODUCERS Zachary Kussin, Hiten Samtani, Mark Maurer PHOTOGRAPHERS Chris Martin, Marc Scrivo DIRECTOR OF MARKETING OPERATIONS Yoav Barilan ASSOCIATE SALES DIRECTOR Ross Fox

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DIGITAL TRAFFIC MANAGER Junaid Zahid WEBMASTER Nima Negahban FINANCE DIRECTOR Kenneth Cyrus ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Virginia Durso CIRCULATION Paul Destanko DISTRIBUTION Mitchell Newman, Michael Presto ATTORNEY Barry J. Friedberg Trachtenberg Rodes & Friedberg LLP ACCOUNTANTS William T. McCallum, CPA, P.C., Christine Wang

Bronx: Aggregate sales of

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12 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

The Real Deal is a registered trademark of Korangy Publishing Inc. Copyright © 2013. Call 212-2601332 or e-mail news@therealdeal.com. Warning: It is illegal to photocopy or reproduce any part of The Real Deal without express written consent. For reprints and duplication rights, call 212-260-1332. Principal office: 158 West 29th St., New York, NY 10001. The Real Deal is published monthly. Annual subscriptions cost $95. Send check or money order to 158 West 29th St., New York, NY 10001.

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EDITOR’S NOTE Working hard or hardly working?

THE NASSIMI GROUP REPRESENTING SELECT NEW DEVELOPMENTS

t’s a basic fact about New York City and its attendant hustle and bustle: People here work their butts off. Most people view summer as a time to kick back and relax, but not the Type A personalities that populate the upper echelons of New York City real estate. (Some of their deal-making takes place at Hamptons cocktail parties, however.) In this issue, we look at what it takes to get to the top of the heap, starting with a profile of SL Green CEO Marc Holliday. Over the past decade and a half, Holliday has grown the REIT into Manhattan’s largest office building owner, and he’s now pulling it even further ahead of its competitors, observers said, including the once seemingly invincible Vornado Realty Trust. (These days, as one real estate insider put it, SL Green “eats Vornado’s lunch.”) One recent blockbuster deal featured round-the-clock meetings, with CEOs woken up at 2 a.m. to discuss new wrinkles in the lease. In a story starting on page 30, reporter Hiten Samtani takes a look inside the world of the $19 billion REIT, where “the job is to kill, fight and pillage to make shareholders value.” In another story, we take a look at the potential SL Greens of the future — newbie investment firms on a buying tear after launching during the downturn. These upand-coming investors (they are invariably well-heeled young men — it looks like a Brooks Brothers catalog on page 55) mostly hail from established firms, but felt the time was right to strike out on their own. Start-up ventures require an incredible amount of work, but many of these firms are already seeing big dividends on their deals. One company, for example, bought a building on the Lower East Side for $8 million and sold it for $18 million a year later. Meanwhile, on page 43, we take a look at Manhattan’s top residential brokers in our annual survey of agents with the most listings. Generally, residential real estate

Summer is a time to kick back and relax, but not for the Type A personalities that populate the upper echelons of New York City real estate.

For all inquiries about regarding these new developments contact

Richard Nassimi Licensed RE Salesperson 212.875.4064 richard.nassimi@corcoran.com

agents don’t get the credit they deserve for their hard work. Let’s face it — much of the general public mistakenly thinks brokers just collect a commission check when a home sells, with little or no work involved. The agents at the top of our list, of course, belie that notion. How else do you rack up more than $410 million in property listings like our first-place finisher, John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens? (Before you reach for your calculator, a 6 percent commission on all of that would amount to $24 million.) Many of the 75 agents we ranked saw a dramatic increase in the dollar value of their listings this year, despite the fact that fewer homes are on the market. That rise is due to today’s stratospheric asking prices for luxury properties, with more homes in the jaw-dropping, eye-popping $100 million territory. (The Hamptons market, by comparison, isn’t quite at that level yet — see page 62.) Of course, not everyone is into working hard. Unions get a lot of heat from developers, who perennially complain about “no show” jobs and paying hefty wages for little work. We take a look at Local 14, which includes the crane operators who singlehandedly set the pace of construction at many projects, in a story starting on page 38. One of the most powerful unions in North America, Local 14 is also one of the most obstinate when it comes to labor agreements with developers, and has engaged in weeklong work stoppages at times. The union has recently shown more willingness to play ball on the cost-saving labor agreements that developers insist are necessary in getting projects done today. (Developers are saying no to $400,000-a-year jobs that involve little to no work; the unions claim they are preserving the middle class and ask why anyone selling $95 million apartments needs a cost-saving agreement.) And finally, speaking of hard work, I’d like to congratulate our managing editor, Jill Noonan, on the birth of her son Remi. At nearly nine months pregnant, she made deadline for the May issue last month, and then, around 15 minutes after closing the issue, went into labor. That’s dedication. More importantly, mother and son are doing very well and the whole staff here (all incredibly hard workers, too) wish her the best during her maternity leave. Enjoy the issue. And for all you Type B personalities: Enjoy the summer, too.

The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker owned and operated by NRT LLC. All listing phone numbers indicate listing agent direct line unless otherwise indicated. 660 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10065 I 212.355.3550.

Stuart Elliott 14 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

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RE S I D E N T I A L MA R K E T BY HAYLEY KAPLAN ith temperatures spiking and new college graduates looking for apartments, June marks the start of the busiest time of year for rental agents in New York City. This year, they’re even busier than normal. As the shortage of for-sale inventory keeps a stranglehold on the sales market, brokers said they’re seeing an unusually

“Hybrid” home-seekers Would-be buyers turn to rentals in tight market

high number of “hybrid” customers — clients who are open to either buying or renting. That’s making an already tight rental market even more competitive. “Most of my clients [would] rather buy, but there is nothing to buy,” said Jacky Teplitzky, a managing director at Douglas Elliman. “As a result, they will compromise on renting.” Michael Lundregan, a broker

at Platinum Properties, said he is working with five hybrid clients. At

ry, higher prices are converting would-be buyers to renters. Ac-

foot of closed Manhattan condo sales in April was $1,351, up 7.2

The average price per square foot of Manhattan closed condo sales in April was $1,351, up 7 percent from the same month last year. For co-ops, the average price was $858 per square foot, an increase of 1 percent from April 2012. this time last year, he was working with only one. Besides the lack of invento-

cording to data compiled for TRD by real estate listings website CityRealty, the average price per square

percent from the same month last year. For co-ops, the average price was $858 per square foot, an increase of 1.37 percent from April 2012. These prices, combined with a limited selection, are prompting would-be buyers to delay purchasing apartments for another year or so and rent instead. “After a few months [sales clients] grow tired of the overcrowded open houses and bidding wars,” said Bond New York agent Annette Holmgren. “Most want to resume their search, but want to wait out this crazy market.” She said she is working with several rental clients who started off looking to buy, but changed course “once they dipped their toes in the water and saw what was going on in the market.” She added that her clients “could not comprehend paying $100,000 over the asking price just to get an alcove studio in the West Village.” But these clients may not find much relief in the rental market. Falling unemployment has already prompted rents to rise, and the growing number of hybrid clients is pushing them even higher, brokers said. According to a Douglas Elliman market report, the median rental price of a Manhattan apartment in April was $3,195 per month, up 6.5 percent from $3,000 in the same month last year. Daria Salusbury is head of luxury leasing operations at the Related Companies, which owns buildings such as the Lyric at 255 West 94th Street and the Westminster at 180 West 20th Street. Salusbury said she expects to see “moderate increases in rents throughout [Related’s] portfolio” this summer. “The rental market is doing well throughout Manhattan, and we are expecting traffic that is either steady or increasing at all our sites,” Salusbury said. Some hybrid-home seekers are turning to rent-to-own apartments, said Anthony Lolli, CEO of Continued on page 98

16 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

www.TheRealDeal.com March 2012 00

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The Real Deal 4.625” wide x 6.375” high

Silicon Alley oops

Small tech firms face office leasing challenges BY TOM ACITELLI n March, the three-year-old information analysis company DataDog signed a lease for 6,500 square feet at 286 Fifth Avenue, just north of the Flatiron District. The space — with a 4,500-square-foot floor plate, as well as exclusive access to a roof deck and to a 2,000-square-foot penthouse — was the sort of airy, open office space that tech firms crave. “They ended up with top-floor space with light on four sides,” said DataDog’s broker, Daniel Schwartz of Winslow & Company. “Mission accomplished.” But the search process wasn’t easy. DataDog had looked at as many as 15 spaces during its search for a new office, which began in earnest late last year. Negotiations fizzled at a few places in Soho and Union Square — prime Silicon Alley territory — when landlords got offers from more established businesses. And DataDog only snagged the 286 Fifth space after a lease with another tenant fell through, Schwartz said.

data from the brokerage Cassidy Turley. In 2012’s first quarter, tech firms for the first time leased more square feet than financial services firms, according to Cushman & Wakefield. But despite their increasing presence, tech firms often struggle to find space in New York City, brokers said. Many small tech firms start out in shared situations, renting space alongside other firms. That’s how DataDog started out in 2010 in the Flatiron, before leasing at 1140 Broadway the following year. Tech start-ups tend to have a more variable life span than other types of companies, brokers said. Many go out of business quickly. But when they become successful, they often grow incredibly quickly. A high-profile example of this phenomenon is the social media giant Facebook. In 2009, the company moved from 5,350 square feet of subleased space at 551 Fifth Avenue to more than 11,000 square feet at 340 Madison Avenue — only to move a couple of years later to 333-335 Madison,

“Many of the other landlords we were negotiating with throughout the process could not give us what we needed in terms of the flexibility.” GREG TAUBIN, STUDLEY DataDog, though, isn’t the only tech firm to struggle finding office space in Manhattan. Smaller companies in particular, especially those still in their start-up phase, confront a market often unwilling to embrace them because of their short (or sometimes nonexistent) financial track records. Many also need shorter-than-average leases and options that allow for fast expansion, both of which New York City landlords are often hesitant to provide. “Landlords aren’t always ready for these kinds of tenants in terms of their credit profiles and personalities,” said Christopher Havens, commercial property director at the real estate brokerage aptsandlofts.com, adding that tech firms also are having a tough time landing space in downtown Brooklyn. That’s somewhat ironic, of course, since the Bloomberg administration has made high-profile attempts to lure more tech firms to New York. In February, for example, the administration launched its “We Are Made in New York” campaign, a multi-platform push to attract tech talent, especially entrepreneurs looking to start new firms. Due in part to these efforts, tech firms account for a growing share of the city’s commercial leasing. The tech sector made up 28 percent of Manhattan office leases in 2011, up from 18 percent in 2010, according to

where the company has an option to expand by more than 150,000 square feet. Lack of flexibility was a problem for the database company 10gen in its search for a new home, according to the firm’s brokers, Studley’s Greg Taubin and Gabe Marans. The company had been looking to move to Midtown South or stay in Soho, where it had been subleasing space at 578 Broadway, but had trouble finding a space that would allow the shorter-than-normal lease it needed, Taubin said. The search was especially difficult in Midtown South, where tech-sector leasing has helped drive the vacancy rate to about 6 percent, the lowest in the nation, brokers said. After a 10-month search, 10gen finally signed a five-year lease for about 29,400 square feet at 229 West 43rd Street, the revamped former Midtown headquarters of the New York Times. The landlord, private-equity giant Blackstone Group, included a lease option that allowed 10gen to expand into the remaining 30,000 feet on its floor. “Many of the other landlords we were negotiating with throughout the process could not give us what we needed in terms of the flexibility,” said Taubin, executive managing director at Studley. To accommodate tech tenants, landContinued on page 98

www.TheRealDeal.com March 2010

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BY THE NUMBERS

Fracas in Flushing Compiled by Evan Bleier

Open for business

Kick-off

Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens is famous for its futuristic structures left over from the two New York World’s Fairs. And the U.S. Open has been held in the park, at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, since 1978. Last month, the U.S. Tennis Association announced that it had reached an agreement with the city to acquire a 0.68-acre piece of land in Flushing Meadows to complete the $500 million expansion of the center. The proposal still needs City Council approval. (Crain’s)

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan al-Nahyan, owner of English soccer team Manchester City, is partnering with the Yankees to bring a new Major League Soccer franchise, the New York City Football Club, to the city. Plans call for the team’s new $340 million home, a 25,000-seat stadium, to occupy 13 acres in Flushing Meadows. (Capital New York)

A way for Willets

In 62-acre Willets Point, an industrial area just north of Flushing Meadows, Sterling Equities and the Related Companies are developing a 200-room hotel and a 1.4 million-square-foot entertainment complex. The project, to be located in the parking lot of the Mets’ Citi Field, is tentatively named “Willets West.” (Times Ledger)

Park protest

The trio of proposed projects has unleashed a public outcry from Queens residents and ofﬁcials, who say the loss of parkland represents the city’s overall lack of regard for the borough. “You try to do this in Prospect Park in Brooklyn or in Central Park, you wouldn’t even get a foot in the door,” state Sen. Tony Avella of Bayside said last month. (Times Ledger)

Airport park

Cosmos comparison

Art Part Two Flushing Meadows

Mayor Bloomberg responded to criticism of the changes to Flushing Meadows by noting that a new park will be opened at the site of the old Flushing Airport. “On balance, there’s an enormous amount of new parkland,” he said. “But it’s not the only thing people need. A lot of people want a stadium to enjoy soccer.” He also said the city and MLS are open to other locations for the stadium. (New York Post)

Another soccer team and a developer have proposed an alternate scenario: The New York Cosmos and the Queens-based Mattone Group want to build a new $374 million sports complex in Belmont Park, the Nassau County site of the well-known horse-racing track. The soccer complex would include a 25,000-seat stadium, a 175-room hotel, almost 300,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and a 4.3-acre community park. (Queens Tribune)

The Queens Museum,, on the outskirts of Flushing Meadows in a building erected for the 1939 World’s Fair,, is expanding. Slated for completion in October, the renovation will double the size of the building to 105,000 square feet. (Hufﬁngton Post)

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AT THE

DESK

OF:CARY

TAMARKIN

Like everything in Tamarkin’s office, these photos of his children, Lucy, 14, and Eli, 16, are tacked to the wall instead of being framed. That allows him to constantly change what’s on display, encouraging spontaneity. “That way all the walls are useful,” Tamarkin said, “instead of being precious.”

Tamarkin doesn’t have a smart phone, and uses an old-fashioned planner instead of an online calendar. “I don’t know how to do that stuff,” he said. “I’m sure I could learn, but I prefer it this way.” Each week, he photocopies the relevant pages of his planner and carries them in a folder to all his meetings.

Tamarkin designs the austere lighting fixtures in many of his buildings. He created this lamp for use in future projects, and he’s currently talking with manufacturers about making it available in stores.

While working as a Boston-based architect after graduating from Harvard, Tamarkin was commissioned to design this conservatory for billionaire John Kluge’s 7,000acre estate in Albemarle County, Va. “I like things that are going to be interesting ruins eventually,” he said. He said he later started a development firm “to make money.”

Tamarkin developed the nine-unit condo project at 47 East 91st Street in 2003, despite months of objections from neighborhood residents. Led by famed director Woody Allen, the locals were concerned that the project would obstruct their views. Tamarkin met with Allen and eventually the building was reduced from 17 to 10 stories. “The funny thing is, people hate developers; they love architects,” Tamarkin said. “So they don’t know what to do with me.”

ary Tamarkin founded the Manhattan real estate fi rm Tamarkin Company, but he’s not your average New York City developer. A Harvard-trained architect, Tamarkin has a hand in designing all of the fi rm’s projects, which include the boutique condominium 456 West 19th Street — known for its curving upper balconies — and the highly anticipated 15-unit 508 West 24th Street, which will launch sales this month. And when deciding what to build and when, he said he’s guided by the urge to create homes that he “would want to live in” rather than by pure profi t. “I have an angel architect on one shoulder and a devil developer on the other,” Tamarkin said. Besides building condos, Tamarkin occasionally does a standalone project, like converting a West Village fi rehouse into a townhouse for CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. And his fi rm is currently working on its fi rst Miami project, a two-story retail building in the city’s Design District. Tamarkin showed TRD around his loft-like work space at 56 West 22nd Street. B Y G UELDA V OIEN

022 june desk of se FINAL.indd 1

PHOTOGRAPH FOR THE REAL DEAL BY CHRIS MARTIN

This jar filled with Wite-Out containers sits next to Tamarkin’s drawing board for easy access when he’s working on sketches. “I love Wite-Out,” Tamarkin said. “It’s like reverse drawing.”

This chunk of plaster is from Tamarkin’s gut renovation of his Perry Street townhouse 15 years ago.

This model of the house Tamarkin designed for his family on Shelter Island does not show the swimming pool he briefly considered putting on the roof. “I decided you might not want gallons of water above where you sleep,” he said.

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No optimism in office leasing Local commercial market untouched by uptick in national economy By Adam Pincus he national economy is humming along, but all the positive signs — a jump in home sales and prices, soaring consumer confidence and a new stock exchange record — have barely budged Manhattan’s office-leasing market. Companies in the city, according to industry analysts, are still focused on cutting costs to keep profits healthy, even when Americans are feeling better about the country’s financial outlook — and with good reason. Last month alone showed huge upticks on three fronts: The volume of residential mortgages nationwide climbed 14 percent, the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index hit a five-year high and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 15,000 mark for the first time. The belt-tightening is reflected in relatively stable rent prices and flat availability rates, from April to May. The average asking rent for Manhattan rose only 30 cents per foot to $55.96, and the availability rate, which measures space open now or in the next 12 months, remained at 12.2 percent, preliminary figures from commercial firm Colliers International showed. “Controlling costs by using less space, that continues to be a theme,” Peter Kozel, executive managing director and chief economist for the New York of-

fice of Colliers, told The Real Deal in explaining the numbers. Kozel, however, expects the commercial outlook to brighten later in the year. He sees growth in the stock market driving mergers and acquisitions as well as initial public offerings. A rise in these two labor-intensive pro-

rate fell by one-tenth of a point from 12.7 percent to 12.6 percent, Colliers data showed. Yet, large blocks hit the market last month, and Kozel expects more of the same in the coming months. The largest space was for more than a third of the

“Controlling costs by using less space, that continues to be a theme.” PETER KOZEL, COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL cesses could lead large financial services firms to add space — or at least not cut back as much. Another commercial insider, Gregory Kraut of Canada-based Avison Young, is on the same page. “Consumer confidence is one of the leading indicators in terms of leasing activity and rental-rate growth,” said Kraut, principal and managing director of the company’s New York office.

Midtown The city’s largest office district, packed with big national firms such as Bank of America and Time Warner, saw small improvements — just as Manhattan did overall. The asking rent rose by 22 cents per square foot to $65.25, while the availability

547,954-square-foot office tower at 114 West 47th Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues. It has no asking rent. The Durst Organization, owner of the 26-story skyscraper built in 1989, listed space on floors 17 through 26 totaling 209,176 square feet, CoStar figures showed. The chunk had been leased to Bank of America, which downsized last year in a renewal. The bank had occupied nearly the entire building but inked a new deal for only 360,000 square feet last year. The space is near large vacancies piling up on Sixth Avenue, yet Kraut talked of rumors about pricey leases being negotiated in the Plaza District. “We are about to see some significant deals in the high end of

the market,” he said, with private equity and hedge funds paying $130 per foot and more. “There is a big delta between the tower floors and the lower floors,” where pricing is flat, Kraut said.

Midtown South Midtown South’s tight supply of space had raised rents until an unusually large block hit the prime area last month. The average asking rent per foot increased 18 percent over the last 12 months, from $43.09 in May 2012 to $50.84 last month, Colliers data showed. From April to May, though, the rise was less steep — only 24 cents per foot — and the availability rate rose by two-tenths of a point, from 9 percent to 9.2 percent, figures from Colliers show. The new chunk of space is at William Macklowe Company’s 386 Park Avenue South at 27th Street, where six floors — 15 through 20 — are available. The space totals 74,270 square feet, CoStar showed. Just two years ago, real estate investment company Savanna owned the building and was charging rent rates in the mid-$40s range, data from CoStar revealed. Today, Macklowe owns the building, and the asking prices are at least $10 per foot higher. Shortly after Macklowe bought the tower in Septem-

When your “all-cash” buyer has less cash than your kid...

Manhattan office stats AVAILABILITY AVG. ASKING RATE RENT

Manhattan May ’13 12.2% $55.96 Apr ’13 12.2% $55.66 Midtown May ’13 12.6% $65.25 Apr ’13 12.7% $65.03 Midtown South May ’13 9.2% $50.84 Apr ’13 9.0% $50.60 Downtown May ’13 15.8% $45.62 Apr ’13 15.7% $45.73 Source: Colliers International

ber for $111.5 million, Savanna co-managing partner Christopher Schlank kidded CEO Bill Macklowe about his quest for higher rents. At an industry forum, Schlank told the audience: “Billy thinks he can get 10 bucks a foot more than we’re getting. That’s great. In many ways, fantasy is better than reality.” Yet, Macklowe’s leasing team from CBRE Group — Paul Amrich, Ross Zimbalist, Neil King and Kerry Powers — is asking from $57 to $65 per foot, one insider said. Macklowe, Savanna and members of the leasing team declined to comment. Continued on page 100

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In their words...

The month’s funniest and most insightful comments on real estate

“Real estate is a wonderful business. You can enjoy it right up until the time you croak.” Harry Macklowe, founder of Macklowe Properties, in a speech to the Real Estate Lenders Association.

“I was playing for Indiana for two years before I finally sold my Denver house. My ‘dream house’ turned into ‘my dream is to sell this house.’” Jalen Rose, retired NBA star and ESPN commentator, advising rookies on what not to buy with money from their first contract. (Grantland)

“I was like, ‘Why am I throwing my money away when I could give myself from $25,000 to $40,000 [more] for the same amount of work?’” Rapid Realty employee Stephanie Barry, on getting a tattoo of the company’s logo in exchange for a 15 percent pay raise. (CBS News)

“A vanity price is a great way to get your 15 minutes of fame.” NYC broker Donna Olshan, who specializes in luxury listings, on the number of properties nationwide listed with price tags of $100 million or more that end up going for less or simply not selling at all. (Wall Street Journal)

26 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

026 june funny quotes se FINAL.indd 1

“Without Eddie Shapiro, I’d still be a hand model.” Reality TV broker Ryan Serhant of Nest Seekers International, referring to his boss and his former career, at a party kicking off his second season on “Million Dollar Listing New York.”

“I’ve run out of Mary Anns to invite as keynote speakers.” Architect Vishaan Chakrabarti, who heads Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate, referring to two guests at a CURE benefit — MaryAnne Gilmartin of Forest City Ratner Companies and Mary Ann Tighe of CBRE.

“I don’t want to be a braggadocio: I build great buildings.” Donald Trump, developer and reality TV star, from the witness stand at a civil trial where he is accused of making false promises to get an 87-year-old woman to buy a condo in his namesake Chicago tower. She lost. (Chicago Tribune)

“The rules of real estate are no longer the same / Basic fundamentals are the name of the game.” San Diego broker Rafael Alberto Perez, rapping in a music video about the current state of the housing market. (Huffington Post)

“We are calling this the Viagra cycle — you know, we want it to last a little bit longer.” Carlos Rosso of the Related Group of Florida, on the remarkable comeback of the Miami condominium market, at a TRD developers roundtable.

“Big real estate rules this island, and it always will.” Real estate author Michael Gross, on being forced by the city to leave his co-op so Extell Development could replace a Sandy-damaged construction crane on its One57 luxury condo tower. (The New York Times) www.TheRealDeal.com August 2006 00

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Adrienne Albert

The Marketing Directors CEO and founder fills her day with cappuccinos, boot camp and a bit of Bruce Willis

1 P.M. This week we had an agents training session here 5:45 A.M. I usually wake up when the sun comes up. I have

for Palmer Square, a condo development in Princeton, N.J.

large windows in my bedroom and there are shades, but I keep them up at night. That’s my alarm clock. Then I hop on the BlackBerry, but I’ll get a cappuccino first and climb

We have architects meet with the agents; we have attorneys Albert’s favorite morning beverage: cappuccino

meet with them and go through the offering plans page by page. The agents need to know all the layouts. They also

back into bed.

need to know the speed of the elevator, how long the waiting time is, so if they get an objection from a buyer about how

8:15 A.M. I live on 73rd Street, and our office is at 59th

they don’t want to be on the 30th floor because of the wait

Street [at 750 Lexington Avenue]. I usually take a taxi.

time, they can have an answer for that. The sessions last all

It takes 10 minutes, unless the President is in town or it’s

afternoon, and even the agents that have been selling for

Christmas. But I try to walk home if I don’t have a lot to carry.

20 years have to do it, because you develop bad habits. But it’s tedious. They call it “boot camp.”

8:30 A.M. I love being here early in the morning, because it’s so quiet. One of the things that the electronic age has robbed

The Marketing Directors’ headquarters at 750 Lexington Ave.

6 P.M. I leave around six. I’m trying to get into an exercise

us of is thinking time, because everybody expects an imme-

[regimen] — I found a trainer. It’s so boring, but I’m trying,

diate answer. “I sent you that e-mail three minutes ago, and

though I hate standing on machines. A couple months ago

you haven’t responded yet!” Well, you know, I would like to

I got this Nike FuelBand bracelet, which measures calories

think about it to make sure I’m giving you the right answer.

and steps taken. I find that I’m walking a lot more since I

These times of the day allow you a little more time to think.

put this stupid thing on! When you make your goal, all these

9 A.M. My day is pretty heavily scheduled. Most mornings we have meetings. On Mondays at nine we have our “MMM,”

The Jefferson, a new condo project where the Marketing Directors is handling sales.

fireworks go off, and it makes me feel good. I’m a positive reinforcement kind of person. I used to ride horses in Central Park before they sold the stable. I play tennis in the summer

or Monday Morning Meeting. We review each project to find

on weekends on Fire Island, where I have a house. I’m not

out what kind of week it had, what kind of traffic it saw and

very good, but I have a lot of fun. Sometimes I play with my

what needs to happen next.

husband, Oskar Brecher [director of development for the Moinian Group]. But my son Matthew, who’s the IT person

11 A.M. This week we met with Barnes, the international brokerage. Our job is to make our developers successful, so we figure out how they can sell more of our product. I want-

here in the office, he’s too good to play with us. Albert has a weekend home on Fire Island.

6:30 P.M. I go out to dinner with friends about four nights a

ed Barnes to be aware of the Jefferson, a new 83-unit condo

week, and I walk if it’s nearby. I like a lot of restaurants: ABC

on East 14th Street. A lot of my time is taken up by meetings

Kitchen, BLT Steak, Vico Ristorante on Madison. I still have

with developers. We also work with the architect. You would

friends from 30 years ago. There’s something about an old

be surprised how many cable connections are in the wrong

friend that’s hard to reproduce in a new friend. Like Jeffrey

place, and light switches and thermostats. It’s not like we’re

Brosk, [a friend] from M.I.T. He’s now a sculptor.

control freaks — but we are! And I have a background as an architect [a master’s in architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology], so sometimes I can sketch what’s

ABC Kitchen, where Albert often goes for dinner.

needed.

9:30 P.M. When I get home, I love putting on action movies. They take me away. Martial arts scenes, they’re like ballet. And Jackie Chan, oh my god, the stunts he does. And Bruce Willis — he does comedy, he does drama, he saves

NOON I don’t really do lunch unless I have to take someone

the world.

out, like this week with Allen Goldman [president of SJP Residential Properties]. He really understands good food, so we

11 P.M. I watch the 11 o’clock news, and I try to stay awake

went to Bottega del Vino on 59th Street. I had gnocchi with

for Leno’s monologue, but I’m asleep right after that.

a white sauce, and tap water. If I had a three-martini lunch, I couldn’t function in the afternoon.

By C. J. Hughes Action hero Bruce Willis.

28 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

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PR O F I L E

Holliday season L

BY HITEN SAMTANI ast month, SL Green Realty Corp. CEO Marc Holliday flew a group of his key executives and top New York brokers to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby, where Holliday’s horse, Love Train, ran in an undercard race. The three-year-old filly didn’t place at Churchill Downs, but Holliday’s Blue Devil Racing Stable has had a strong run, with some $2.5 million in winnings to date, according to thoroughbred racing site Equibase. That windfall comes as no surprise to top real estate attorney Robert Ivanhoe, who counts the SL Green head as a longtime friend and client. Whether it’s horse-racing or real estate, Holliday “just has incredible judgment and instinct about how to make money,” Ivanhoe said. Since Holliday joined SL Green 15 years ago, the company has mushroomed from a mid-size landlord into a publicly traded behemoth. Now New York City’s largest commercial property owner, SL Green has roughly $19 billion in gross asset value, according to data from Sandler O’Neill + Partners. SL Green’s portfolio encompasses more than 30 million square feet of office properties, including such prized assets as the 1.75 million-square-foot One Astor Plaza at 1515 Broadway, the 926,122-square-foot 485 Lexington Avenue, the Graybar building at 420 Lexington Avenue and the News Building at 220 East 42nd Street. In recent years, SL Green has surged ahead of its competitors, including the once seemingly invincible Vornado Realty Trust. With an aggressive strategy that combines acquisition and leasing of properties with mezzanine financing, SL Green was the only New York–focused REIT to outperform both the MSCI US REIT Index — a market capitalization index that represents 85 percent of the country’s REITs — and the S&P 500 index in the first quarter. Also in the first three months of the year, SL Green signed Manhattan lease deals totaling nearly 600,000 square feet, including 42,664 square feet of space at 521 Fifth Avenue and 43,294 square feet at 100 Park Avenue. And at the time of the REIT’s April earnings call, the REIT had nearly 1 million square feet of deals in the pipeline. These days, as one real estate insider put it, SL Green “[eats] Vornado’s lunch.” Holliday took over for firm founder Stephen Green in 2004, and industry players and analysts credit him — and the ferociously competitive culture he’s instilled at SL Green — with the REIT’s rapid ascent. “We take it almost personally when it

30 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

SL Green Realty CEO Marc Holliday’s aggressive acquisition and leasing strategy has allowed the REIT to surge ahead of its competitors in recent years.

comes to retaining tenants and getting opportunities at the right price,” Holliday told The Real Deal in a rare phone interview. To his peers, Holliday is a talented negotiator, able to deftly balance aggression and fairness to come away with the spoils. “He’s a win-win guy,” Jared Kushner, CEO of Kushner Companies and a former intern at SL Green, said of Holliday. “He understands how to make a good deal for himself, and he understands that you’ve got to let the other person make a good deal, too.”

All in the family New York real estate is renowned for its dynasties, and Holliday, like many in the field, has strong family ties to the industry.

Marc Holliday captains NYC’s top office landlord as it surges ahead

Holliday’s maternal grandfather, George Goldberg, was a prominent owner of real estate in Brooklyn, and his father, Morton Holliday, was a managing director at real estate financing company Sonnenblick-Goldman in the 1970s. “Mort Holliday was doing the biggest deals in New York in those days,” recalled James Kuhn, president of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Of his son, Morton Holliday said, “Real estate was always in his genes.” “Like any father, I gave him the benefit of my experience and advice,” he added, and “many of my clients are now Marc’s clients.” The younger Holliday grew up in the wealthy town of Huntington on the North Shore of Long Island, and was the starting goalie on the Huntington High School lacrosse team, his father said. The family took frequent trips to the Thoroughbred track in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where Holliday developed his love of horseracing. (These days, he shares that love with his wife, Sheree, a competitive rider.) In 1990, Holliday graduated from Columbia University’s graduate real estate development program and went to work at the private real estate investment bank Capital Trust. Ivanhoe, who first met Holliday around that time, re-

dynamo Michael Fascitelli from Goldman Sachs. Fascitelli’s hire signaled that real estate industry players would now be “unsentimental, not good ol’ boys, but young tough boys,” said Kenneth Patton, the onetime COO of Helmsley-Spear and a longtime professor at NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. These newcomers, ushering in a new level of intensity in the industry, would “kill, fight and pillage to make [their] shareholders value.” Holliday was Green’s answer to Fascitelli. Green had founded SL Green Properties in 1980, acquiring and upgrading Class B buildings on side streets. By the 1990s, the company had a $500 million portfolio and was gearing up to go public. Green hired the thirtysomething Holliday — on the recommendation of Ivanhoe, his attorney and golf buddy — as chief investment officer in 1998 with the intention of grooming him to take over. “I was a big early fan of the securitization market and the positive impact it could have on institutional real estate,” Holliday said, describing Green as a “visionary” for “seeing the potential of a Wall Street approach to growing a real estate platform.” Green quickly became Holliday’s mentor. For years in the late 1990s, the two met once a week for breakfast at the Royalton Hotel on West 44th Street, crafting an ambitious vision for the future of SL Green. “All I ever had on me at the time was my Wall Street Journal and a pen,” recalled Holliday. “We’d pencil out the business plan and adapt it week-to-week.”

“We take it almost personally when it comes to retaining tenants and getting opportunities at the right price.” MARC HOLLIDAY, SL GREEN calls being “extremely impressed” with the young man, especially with his skill in structured finance. Back then, the real estate landscape was undergoing a sea change, with mortgages beginning to be “securitized,” or converted into securities that investors could purchase. To cope with that increased complexity, real estate bosses looked to Wall Street. The most high-profile of these hires came in 1996, when Vornado’s Steven Roth lured capital markets

When Green stepped down as CEO in 2004, he “very happily turned over the reins” to Holliday, Ivanhoe said. Indeed, when SL Green visited the New York Stock Exchange last year to celebrate the REIT’s 15th anniversary, the tall, leonine Green sounded the gavel, but the stockier Holliday was front and center. “Steve has three sons, and none of them went into his business,” Ivanhoe said, adding that Green takes “enormous pride” in Holliday’s success.

www.TheRealDeal.com January 2011 25 ILLUSTRATION FOR THE REAL DEAL BY DANIEL O’LEARY

Pr o f i l e Taking charge Almost immediately, Holliday began having an impact at SL Green. First, he spearheaded efforts to “go after big buildings on the avenues,” Ivanhoe said, rather than the smaller Class B buildings that made up the bulk of the firm’s portfolio up to that point. In December 2003, for example, SL Green paid $450 million for a 45 percent stake in the McGraw-Hill Building at 1221 Sixth Avenue. Seven years later, the REIT sold its stake to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for roughly $576

replied: ‘I would rather overpay today at $500 a foot than three years later at $800 a foot.’” Holliday also led the creation of a structured finance capability at the REIT, Ivanhoe said, which allowed SL Green to convert missed acquisition opportunities, such as the Young & Rubicam Building at 285 Madison Avenue, into lucrative financing deals. Though Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty bought the property for $189 million in late 2012, SL Green had a finger in the pie by giving RFR a bridge loan. And at 100 Church Street, where the

“They completely turned the asset around,” Ivanhoe said. SL Green’s structured finance acumen, combined with its leasing expertise, allowed the company to forge “an identity” in the market, Patton said. That, and the competitive culture instilled by Holliday. Earlier this year, SL Green bid on the Sony Building at 550 Madison Avenue, but lost out to developers Joseph Chetrit and David Bistricer. Ivanhoe, who was representing Chetrit and Bistricer, recalls being cornered at a party by several

Marc Holliday (left) with the firm’s founder, Stephen Green

From left: In December 2003, SL Green paid $450 million for a 45 percent stake in the McGraw-Hill Building at 1221 Sixth Avenue, and seven years later, the REIT sold its stake to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for roughly $576 million; SL Green and Jeff Sutton in 2011 paid $136.6 million for 1552 Broadway, a landmarked 15,000-square-foot building; the Sony Building at 550 Madison Avenue, where SL Green arranged $925 million in financing for the Chetrit Group’s $1.1 billion acquisition.

million, according to CoStar. In making acquisitions such as these, Holliday displays a foresight reminiscent of his father, NGKF’s Kuhn said. “Before the market got really hot, SL Green won a lot of buildings by being the highest bidder,” Kuhn recalled. “I asked Marc: ‘Do you think you overpaid?’ He

PHOTOGRAPH HOLLIDAY AND GREEN BY STEVE FRIEDMAN 28 MarchOF 2012 www.TheRealDeal.com

Sapir Organization in 2009 defaulted on its $30 million senior mezzanine loan issued by Gramercy Capital (then a SL Green subsidiary), SL Green moved to take control of the Financial District property. When the REIT took over, the building was barely 60 percent leased, but by October 2012, it was 97 percent occupied.

eager SL Green executives. “They asked: ‘Did the other bidder win?’” Ivanhoe said. “When I nodded, they said: ‘OK, we have the asset underwritten, do they have the loan yet?’ I think they used words like ‘lock and load.’” By the end of the next day, there was a signed contract for SL Green to arrange

$925 million in financing for Chetrit and Bistricer’s $1.1 billion acquisition, one of the largest deals in Manhattan office history. “The New York market is not forgiving with time,” Holliday said of the deal, summing up SL Green’s über-aggressive approach. That ethos of hard work and long hours, several people familiar with the company said, is embraced by Holliday’s top lieutenants, including president Andrew Mathias, co-chief investment officers David Schonbraun and Isaac Zion and leasing director Steven Durels. “No one will outwork Marc Holliday and SL Green,” said Ivanhoe, adding that the REIT’s employees are fully aware of that expectation. “The message [is], unless you’re willing to get on that train and you’re up for all of that, go somewhere else.” For example, entertainment giant Viacom’s 1.6 million-square-foot renewal and expansion at SL Green’s 1515 Broadway in April of last year was a result of a weeklong series of round-the-clock meetings. “They were literally 24-hour meetings, with phone calls to each side’s CEO, waking them up in the middle of the night, at 2 o’clock in the morning, with new issues,” Durels told the New York Observer of the deal. Mathias, a Wharton graduate who followed Holliday from Capital Trust to SL Green shortly after it went public, is particularly crucial to Holliday’s team, industry sources said. Mathias is “quiet and low-key,” Ivanhoe said, in contrast to the “more effusive and outgoing” CEO. “We’re sort of alter egos,” Holliday said of his second-in-command. Perhaps more importantly, the two share a reputation for integrity, several sources said. Holliday and Mathias are among “the few guys in New York City whose handshake really means something,” said Robert “Large Loan” Verrone, founder of real estate financing company Iron Hound Management, who represented the Chetrit Group in sourcing the Sony Building loan. “They really go out of their way to take care of the relationship.” In 2011, SL Green played the role of a white knight at Joseph Moinian’s prized 3 Columbus Circle, a 26-story, 768,565-square-foot tower at 1775 Broadway. Moinian had been battling default at the tower, which was reportedly only 23 percent occupied at the end of 2009. In a bid to wrest the property from him, the Related Companies bought a $250 million note on the property. “Joe was going to have a very hard time refinancing in a limited capital market,” said Kuhn, who was involved in leasing the building. “He brought in Marc, and Continued on page 98

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 31

REGULATING REAL ESTATE

Pocket listings on the rise

More agents are giving info about homes only to own clients, colleagues to keep commissions in-house By Kenneth Harney

ow hot is hot when it comes to housing markets across the country right now? Crazy hot: Some houses sell within days, sometimes within hours, of listing. Then there are the growing numbers of “pocket” listings that sell even before they formally hit the market. What’s a pocket listing? Essentially it’s a private, off-market listing, often of short duration. Instead of putting the property on the local multiple listing service, which lets a countless number of homebuyers and brokerages see it online, agents restrict access to information about the house to their own clients or colleagues in their brokerage, hoping for a quick, full-price sale. Pocket listings are surging, real estate experts say, because of historically low inventories of homes for sale in metropolitan areas, along with strong buyer demand and low mortgage rates. This combination has made control of upcoming new listings a powerful, highly profitable

Podley, Howell, Kelman and many of their colleagues are critical of pocket listings. They argue that by restricting access to information about homes available for sale to relatively small numbers of potential buyers, agents who engage in the practice are not fulfilling their core duties to their seller clients and not obtaining the highest possible prices. Podley cites the example of a house he recently sold. Because it was put on the multiple listing service, it drew 300 visitors and 50 offers within five days, and it sold for more than 40 percent above the asking price. “It is highly unlikely,” he said, “[that] the seller would have achieved that kind of price had the home been exposed to a limited number of buyers” through a pocket listing. Some agents, however, argue that there is a good case for keeping things private: Sellers may not want hundreds of strangers tramping through their homes. Others just want to get the transaction done quickly at an agreeable

Many top brokers are critical of “pocket” listings, contending less exposure doesn’t translate to the highest dollar. asset for agents in the most competitive sellers’ markets. If agents can sell their off-market listing to a buyer-client they bring in on their own, they can collect both sides of the commission rather than splitting it with another agent. If they can sell it through colleagues in their own firm — even at a slight discount to regular commission rates — the full commission remains inside the brokerage. Though no organization or research firm publishes statistics on the subject, top brokers in some highly competitive markets say pocket listings are becoming a significant factor in the business. Bill Podley, broker-owner of Podley Properties, a Pasadena, Calif.-based firm that specializes in middle- and high-end communities, says he has heard estimates that as high as one-third of luxury and upper-cost homes selling in northeast Los Angeles County are pocket listings. David Howell, executive vice president of McEnearney Associates Inc., a large brokerage in the Washington, D.C., area, says he heard a recent estimate that such listings may now run as high as 20 percent nationwide. Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, an online real estate firm, said: “We are seeing more pocket listings across the U.S. In Boston and Los Angeles, we also see listing agents refuse to allow any showings of the home until the weekend open house.” 32 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

price — not a bonanza — and don’t see the need for Internet exposure. Still others argue that large brokerages that are prominent in the upper brackets of their local markets have agents who know hundreds of potentially interested buyers. Tom Heatherman, communications director for Michael Saunders & Co., a Sarasota, Fla., brokerage with 600 agents, says his firm conducts weekly “caravans” for its agents to view homes not yet on the multiple listing service but scheduled for listing by the company later in the week. In this spring’s atmosphere of “feverish” buyer demand, he said, the firm’s agents often are able to sell these houses “before they even make it to the market.” In fact, according to Heatherman, the company’s ability to market first to its own large pool of agents is a key reason why sellers choose them. Bottom line: If you are thinking about selling, be aware that pocket listings restrict the audience for your property, and possibly your maximum price. If that’s fine with you, and you understand the potential conflicts of interest when brokerages represent both the seller and the buyer in a real estate transaction, then go for it. Kenneth Harney is a syndicated columnist.

GOVERNMENT BRIEFS Top developers bid on 6-acre public parcel on LES Some of the city’ top developers — among them Forest City Ratner, Related Companies, Taconic Investment Partners and AvalonBay Communities — have put in bids for the largest parcel of available public land in Manhattan below 96th Street, the Wall Street Journal reported. The 6-acre Seward Park site on A rendering of Seward Park the Lower East Side went on the auction block last month; the city expects to make a decision by fall and could award the contract to one developer or split the project among several bidders. A plan that the city OK’d last fall calls for the land to include housing, retail shops and offices as well as an expansion of Essex Market. The housing portion will include 1,000 housing units, half of which must be permanently affordable, and the retail shops will be smaller to keep out big-box stores.

Sandy-hit co-op owners denied federal aid Thousands of co-op owners who had their homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy cannot receive federal aid because the government classifies co-ops as businesses — not personal property, the New York Times reported. The law, known as the Stafford Act and enforced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also bars co-op boards from getting money to repair common arSandy damage in NYC eas. FEMA officials told the newspaper that they cannot help the owners unless Congress amends the law. Lawmakers promised to push for change but urged FEMA to act reasonably in the meantime. Nearly a fifth of the city’s housing units in the storm surge area were co-ops. At least 120 co-op buildings, with 13,000 apartments, sustained damage.

City seeks developer for LIC housing project The city is gearing up for the second phase of its massive waterfront housing project in Queens just as the first phase is getting underway, Crain’s reported. Hunter’s Point South is a 30-acre waterfront site in Long Island City that will have as many as 5,000 units as well as parking, a park and shops. In May, the city asked developers to submit proposals for the second phase, which will include 1,000 new apartments — half for middle- and moderHunter’s Point South ate-income families — along with 28,000 square feet of retail space and a ferry dock. Related Cos. is developing the first phase, which calls for 925 units, a new school and retail space. The second phase will be just south of the first on an 110,000-square-foot site along the East River between Borden and 54th avenues. Because of the project’s location, the city is insisting that developers adhere to the new Post-Sandy FEMA flood maps and design to the latest resiliency standards. Compiled by Sanna Chu

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Who’s gonna make me? New state advertising rules may be difficult to enforce

BY LAUREN ELKIES SCHRAM he state of New York just revamped advertising rules for real estate agents, but it may not be able to effectively enforce them, industry sources said. That leaves brokers and fi rms with the diffi cult task of monitoring their agents’ email, websites and even Facebook pages. The regulations will govern

how agents can advertise online, how they handle references to brokerage firms, and even what they can call their teams. For example, a team of agents working together within a firm can no longer be called a “group.” Approved by the State Board of Real Estate in April, the revamp goes into effect Jan. 2. The New York Department of State will be tasked with implementing the

policies, which replace rules dating as far back as the 1970s. “The existing advertising regulations … did not reflect current advertising trends, such as the development of real estate teams,” said Lazaro Benitez, a DOS spokesperson. “The new rules address contemporary forms of advertising.” Enforcement is not going to be easy, because of both rapidly

changing social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and the sheer number of agents and brokerages. DOS figures show 52,855 brokers statewide, with nearly half — 23,517 — in New York City. In the five boroughs, there are 28,248 real estate salespeople, the agency said. Many brokers told The Real Deal that they see the overhaul as

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a positive, especially for clients, but expect aspects of it to be difficult to police. “The rules are good for the brokerage community and good for the city,” said Ryan Serhant, an executive vice president at the New York City brokerage Nest Seekers International. He predicted agents will have a fairly easy time following the rules for sales listings, but “rental listings will be tough to monitor.” That’s because agents have to secure an ironclad exclusive agreement to list a property for sale; a majority of New York City rentals, however, are “open listings,” or properties marketed by many different agents. Already, there is confusion about how the rules pertain to open listings. The new guidelines state that agents must get “authorization for such advertisement from the owner of the property.” But the existing rules actually require the same approval, said Anthony Gatto, director of legal services for the New York State Association of Realtors, which collaborated with the board on the new measures. But some brokers are not aware of the law, and others said they operate under the assumption that such permission is implicit. The text of the law doesn’t specify what form the authorization must take, or whether permission needs to be given every time a new listing hits the market. Rutenberg Realty markets only open listings that come directly from landlords or property managers, said Kathy Braddock, who co-founded the New York City brokerage. But she and other firm heads said they are under the impression that once a firm has worked with a property manager, permission to market their open listings is assumed going forward. Not so, according to Gatto of NYSAR. “With open listings, there’s no implied authorization,” he said. “A broker cannot assume because he obtained permission to market a listing in a building at one time that he has permission to market another unit in the building.”

Police force

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To police the real estate industry, DOS said it relies primarily on complaints from consumers, which it then investigates. The agency said it also initiates its own investigations, such as randomly reviewing websites. Continued on page 94

34 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

034 Open listings se FINAL.indd 1

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Selection Portfolio works by creating a population of properties within a designated price Scanning Range and compares each property against others in the group using measurements called Primary Motivators, which include the unit’s Location, Building, Air, Light, Space and Financials. The resulting report provides an at-a-glance evaluation of each unit as below, equal to or above average when compared to the other properties in the group. In addition, the system permits the user to determine the value of each property using Selection Portfolio Valuation (SPV). SPV references competing properties for sale or that have been recently sold and creates a report that delineates the basis for valuation conclusions. The process will allow a prospective buyer to make an informed decision.

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Construction

Aiming for a more perfect union After years as a thorn in developers’ sides, Local 14 may finally be yielding ground in labor talks

By David Jones onstruction cranes dot New York City’s skyline, the definitive sign that real estate is back. And inside each of those massive machines is a member of Local 14 of the International Association of Operating Engineers, one of the most powerful unions in North America. On the jobsite, licensed crane operators singlehandedly set the pace of construction. “On every one of those work sites, it is the crane operator who conducts the orchestra,” Ed Christian,

“When you are sitting in a cab 60, 70, 80 stories above the street hoisting thousands of pounds of steel, you are holding the lives of hundreds of construction workers, passing cars, pedestrians in your hands.” Ed Christian, Local 14

38 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

president and business manager of Local 14, told The Real Deal matter-of-factly. “Our members set the tempo of the job; our members can shut down the job if the winds are too strong or conditions aren’t safe.” How quickly a tower goes up, though, is only the most visible sign of the operators’ influence. Real estate insiders and labor experts agree that the union’s greatest power lies in its numbers, more than 900 members strong across the five boroughs, and its control over a crucial sector of the industry.

Local 14 has “a lot of leverage and power associated with their control over a vitally important supply of skilled workers,” said Jeff Grabelsky, director of the Construction Industry Program at Cornell University and the former national organizing director of AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department. “Given the high level of skill and vital role they play, they are critically important partners.” But with new licensing requirements for crane operators going into effect next month, few agree on whether the union’s strength is helping or hurting the construction industry in New York. As the economy recovers, developers have started hiring more non-union workers to cut costs, a step they insist is necessary to balance the concerns of cautious lenders, construction quality and job-site safety. The tactic has forced organized labor, including the electricians’ Local 3 and the ironworkers’ Local 580, to agree to cutbacks on wages, benefits and job rules. Earlier this year, for example, Zeckendorf Development announced that union concessions would allow it to save 20 percent in employee costs for its 44-story condo at 50 United Nations Plaza. Other high-profile developers who have negotiated similar packages include Steve Witkoff for 150 Charles Street in the West Village and Harry Macklowe for his 432 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side. Developers contend that these concessions have played a part in the industry’s return to health, and that more are needed for a full recovery. “The employers would say they’ve gotten

some benefit [from the concessions] but not enough, and the unions would say they’ve given up more than what’s reasonably expected of them,” said Allen Ross, a veteran construction lawyer who is a partner at Duane Morris. Local 14, however, has stood alone in opposing many of these projects’ labor agreements, refusing to bend when other unionized trades caved. “They are just much more difficult and obstinate [than other unions],” said the president of a major New York–based development firm, who asked not to be identified to prevent biasing future labor discussions. To labor activists, Local 14 is the firewall in the fight for worker rights. “Too many people forget it was the training and union wages and benefits that built the middle class,” Christian said. “No matter how grand or how high the building, if the workers aren’t provided fair wages and benefits, buildings may rise, but the middle class will disappear.” But to developers, the union is blocking what could be a full-fledged building boom, which they consider a plus for everyone — crane operators included. “Anything that’s going to make the cost and the price of building in today’s modern era cheaper is something to be applauded, no matter where it comes from,” said Manhattan-based construction attorney Barry LePatner, author of “Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets.”

Checkered past Founded in 1896, the International Association of Operating Engineers has more than 400,000 members and 123 chapters in the U.S. and Canada. In New York, Local 14 members have been involved in almost every major real estate and public works project, including the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn, Hunter’s Point South in Long Island City, the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan and the Second Avenue Subway. Relative to other construction trades, industry insiders explained, the operating engineers bring a critical amount of leverage to the table because their field is so specialized and

www.TheRealDeal.com January 2011 25

Construction highly skilled — they can literally speed up or shut down a project by themselves. Over the years, Local 14 hasn’t hesitated to use its power. In July 2006, the crane operators in New York led a weeklong construction strike after negotiations broke down over productivity rules. Some union members had been accused of being paid as much as $82.65 an hour for doing little or no work. Labor 14 threatened to walk off the job again in 2011, when developers pushed for a reduction in overtime pay for on-site elevator operators and for the elimination of “master mechanics.” The union required master mechanics to be present at any construction site with at least five pieces of heavy equipment or three tower cranes; developers argued that the master mechanics did virtually no work yet received sometimes as much as $400,000 a year, including overtime. Eventually, the two sides reached a compromise, agreeing to eliminate master mechanics on projects of less than $50 million. On overtime pay, the developers scored a victory — from double time to time and a half for elevator operators working outside, and $10 less an hour for inside operators. Still, developers contend they need to cut labor costs even more and are finding other ways to get union concessions. The Related Companies, for example, hired California-based Tutor Perini Corp. to manage construction on a 47-story tower at 30th Street and 10th Avenue in its massive Hudson Yards project, which allows it to get around local work rules and salary requirements. That move, which some predicted could lead to the hire of non-union crane operators, succeeded in bringing Local 14 to the bargaining table. Christian said the two sides have since worked out a deal for Local 14 to work on the Hudson Yards project under Tutor Perini. “We have been able to negotiate an agreement which will generate significant savings for this project,” he said, but declined to give further details. Both Related and Tutor Perini declined to comment. Whether Local 14 will compromise with less formidable developers on lesser projects remains to be seen; Christian, however, said his members are open to talks. “We are always prepared and willing to negotiate,” Christian told TRD. Tensions within the industry have paralleled the strife inside Local 14. A three-year federal investigation of the union’s ties to the Columbo and Genovese organized crime families culminated in 2008 with convictions of more than 45 top union officials and family members. The officials were found to have received kickbacks for no-show jobs and bribes from contractors. To ensure the union stayed clean, a

federal district court judge appointed George Stamboulidis, managing partner of the New York office of the law firm BakerHostetler, as Local 14’s ethical practices attorney. “It’s not a great thing when you’ve got a union responsible for running important equipment at a job site that’s run or influenced by the Mob,” a law enforcement official with detailed knowledge

of reputed mobster Paul Vario. Thomas Vario, a 46-year-old construction worker who lives in Queens, argued he has no connections with the mob and does not even communicate with his uncle. Nonetheless, Judge Sterling Johnson threw out the case on a technical matter, noting that Stamboulidis was acting properly in his union oversight role. In April, Local 14 put up a slate of

Local 14’s Ed Christian has a reputation among developers for driving a hard bargain. But the union president maintains he is willing to negotiate.

Left, a rendering of Steve Witkoff’s new condo 150 Charles Street. Right, Developers William (left) and Arthur Zeckendorf of Zeckendorf Development announced that union concessions would allow them to save 20 percent in employee costs at 50 United Nations Plaza.

of the investigation told TRD, adding there has been no direct link between organized crime and any crane accidents since the probe. Just a few months ago, in February, Local 14 was on the winning side in court. A federal district judge threw out a 2011 lawsuit by Thomas Vario, who claimed the union denied him membership because he is the great nephew

PHOTOGRAPH CHRISTIAN FOR THE REAL DEAL BY CHRIS MARTIN; PHOTOGRAPH OF ZECKENDORFS BY MARC BECKER 28 MarchOF 2012 www.TheRealDeal.com

candidates for its first election of officers in more than a decade, after years of being prohibited from doing so by investigators. Christian hopes the election will herald a new era. “That chapter is now behind us,” Christian said of the corruption scandal, “and we will be vigilant moving forward to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Safety first In the wake of a string of serious accidents, most notably the 2008 crane collapse at 303 East 51st Street that killed seven and injured 24, the Department of Buildings has instituted more than two dozen regulations to improve construction-site safety. The real estate industry supports the requirements, said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, which counts many developers among its members. “A safer work environment, which the city’s new work environment will produce over time, will lead to the production of more housing, commercial space and jobs,” Spinola said. Official word of the new crane-operator requirements came in April 2012, though the proposal had been in the works for months. By July 1, all crane operators must complete 40 hours of training on New York City’s safety and construction regulations, pass a criminal background check, meet physical fitness requirements and comply with a substance abuse policy. Also part of the new licensing requirements is certification by the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators or another accredited organization. “A better exam means a better crane operator on the job site,” DOB Commissioner Robert LiMandri said when he announced the changes. “Veterans of any profession can suffer from complacency, but in the world of high-risk crane operations, it can lead to catastrophe.” Local 14 and other unions have made it clear that they endorse making the workplace safer, but question whether the new laws are simply a back-end way to undercut the gains of organized labor. Local 14’s Christian pushed back against any suggestion that safety isn’t of the utmost importance to crane operators. “Our members need no reminders of the dangers of our work,” he said. “When you are sitting in a cab 60, 70, 80 stories above the street, hoisting thousands of pounds of steel or swinging tons of cement, you are holding the lives of hundreds of construction workers, passing cars, pedestrians in your hands. That doesn’t even take into account the possibility of causing millions of dollars of damage to nearby property, and shutting down the entire project.” He said that every major accident in the last five years occurred because of a lack of proper inspection or equipment failure. In LePatner’s view, the construction industry is still in dire need of reform, in terms of safety, cost and transparency. “We’ve got to break some of the bonds that hold back the entire construction industry and really have them shooting themselves in the foot,” he said. TRD

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 39

Urban Compass bets big on NYC real estate

Tech startup aims to succeed where others have failed By Katherine Clarke s New Yorkers know all too well, finding a rental apartment often means scoping out listings on Craigslist and StreetEasy, trudging through any number of places — many that look nothing like they did in photos online — and then paying a hefty fee to a broker. But a much-hyped Manhattan startup, Urban Compass, wants to make it both cheaper and easier to rent an apartment. Founders Ori Allon, the serial tech entrepreneur, and Goldman Sachs alum Robert Reffkin officially launched the beta version of the Urban Compass website last month — Mayor Michael Bloomberg even showed up for the occasion — after months of secrecy about their project. In what it calls “an endto-end solution,” the company combines a StreetEasy-style listings website with a team of in-house “neighborhood specialists,” who function much like real estate brokers. Clients pay a commission of 7.5 percent of a year’s rent, less than the standard New York City broker’s fee of up to 15 percent. Urban Compass has already raised $8 million in seed funding from venture capital backers such as Goldman Sachs, Founders Fund and .406 Ventures, as well as CEOs

such as Kenneth Chenault of American Express and Cyrus Massoumi of ZocDoc. Other investors include real estate personalities such as Bill Rudin of Rudin Management and Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of landlord and developer Jared Kushner, whose company Thrive Capital has thrown its weight behind the company. The company’s technology “will make us incredibly efficient,” said Gordon Golub, a longtime top executive at the real estate brokerage Citi Habitats, who surprised the industry in January by decamping for Urban Compass. “The consumer search should be much more painless.” But Urban Compass isn’t the first tech startup to tackle the high-priced, competitive world of New York City real estate. StreetEasy and Craigslist currently serve as consumers’ first stop for online apartment searches here. Sites such as Zillow and Trulia, while popular throughout the country, haven’t taken off the same way in New York City, where they’ve been criticized for having stale listings. Urban Edge, a rentals website that launched in 2010, lets consumers browse listings and contact landlords directly, while Naked Apartments charges brokers and landlords to post their listings

Top, from left: Kyle Kimball, executive vice president and executive director of the New York City Economic Development Corporation; Urban Compass co-founder Robert Reffkin; Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Urban Compass cofounder Ori Allon; and Rachel Haot, the city’s chief digital officer. Above, a screenshot of the Urban Compass website.

and lets renters search for free. Discount brokerages have also tried — and largely failed — to gain a foothold here. Foxtons North America famously filed for

bankruptcy in 2007 after making a splashy entrance into the New York metro area in the early 2000s. Continued on page 94

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All-Star Agents

Manhattan’s top listing agents

Sky-high prices protect luxury brokers from inventory squeeze Clockwise from top: John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens, Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s International Realty, Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens, Deborah Grubman of the Corcoran Group, Leonard Steinberg of Douglas Elliman and Carrie Chiang of Corcoran.

By Hayley Kaplan ith more eight- and even nine-figure listings hitting the market, Manhattan’s top brokers aren’t feeling the inventory squeeze as much as

ILLUSTRATION FOR www.TheRealDeal.com THE REAL DEAL BY WARREN GEBERT 34 July 2012

their colleagues in other segments of the residential industry. While nearly all of Manhattan’s top 10 brokers have fewer properties on the market than last year, most have a higher dollar value of listings, according to The Real Deal’s annual rank-

ing of Manhattan’s top 75 listing agents. That includes Sotheby’s International Realty brokers Serena Boardman, Elizabeth Sample and Brenda Powers, who are co-listing what is currently the most expensive apartment in Manhattan: the

late investor Martin Zweig’s triplex at the Pierre Hotel at 795 Fifth Avenue for $125 million. Boardman, ranked at No. 2 on TRD’s list, had 17 listings worth $304.49 million as of May 1, up dramatically from her $198.9 million total last

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 43

All-Star Agents year. Sample and Powers, who work as a team, came in at No. 5 with listings worth $215.3 million, a jump from $162.9 million in 2012. For Deborah Grubman of the Corcoran Group, getting the exclusive on Ste-

Going solo

Burger works alone — something he believes his clients value. “The backbone of [my] business is personal service,” said Burger, who has been in real estate for nearly three decades. “I believe that my clients want me.

The city’s top real estate brokers have vastly different approaches when it comes to marketing properties. Some hire large teams of agents to assist them, while others work primarily alone, join-

rently include a duplex penthouse at 55 Central Park West on the market for $35 million, and a 16-room penthouse at 52 East 72nd Street for $21.95 million. Burger also recently put a penthouse at 10 Gracie Square on the market for $23 million,

Sotheby’s International Realty brokers Serena Boardman, Elizabeth Sample and Brenda Powers are co-listing a triplex at the Pierre Hotel for $125 million.

ven Cohen’s $115 million duplex at One Beacon Court helped propel her to No. 3, from No. 11 last year. This year, she had 12 listings worth $258.82 million, far more than her $125.47 million last year. “The numbers are bigger now than they’ve ever been,” Grubman said. Using data collected from the listings portal On-Line Residential, TRD ranked the top 75 agents based on dollar value of Manhattan listings on the market or in contract as of May 1.

“The numbers are bigger now than they’ve ever been.” Deborah Grubman, the Corcoran Group ing with other agents only for occasional one-off deals. One lone wolf is John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens, who for the second consecutive year earned the No. 1 spot on TRD’s ranking, with 25 listings worth nearly $411 million. Besides his assistant of 10 years,

And I try to be as available as possible. I answer my own telephone, and I answer my own emails.” Because of his approach, Burger said he “easily” turns away two to three clients a month, referring them to other Brown Harris Stevens agents. That means he gets to pick and choose his listings, which cur-

though the property wasn’t included in TRD’s ranking because it was listed after May 1. When Burger ascended to the top of TRD’s rankings last year, he displaced another longtime top Brown Harris Stevens broker, townhouse specialist Paula Del Nunzio, who was ranked No. 1 in 2011 but

Top Manhattan agents 2013 RANK NAME

FIRM

APTS

John Burger

Brown Harris Stevens

TOWNH0USES

IN CONTRACT LISTING $ VOLUME

$410,995,000

LISTINGS INCLUDE:

A duplex penthouse at 55 Central Park West for $35 million

Serena Boardman

Sotheby’s International Realty

$304,490,000

A penthouse at the Pierre for $125 million

Deborah Grubman Group

Corcoran Group

$258,820,000

A penthouse at One Beacon Court for $115 million

The Carrie Chiang Group

Corcoran Group

$258,180,450

A townhouse at 39 East 74th Street

Brenda Powers and Elizabeth Sample

Sotheby’s International Realty

$215,289,999

A penthouse at the Pierre for $125 million

Paula Del Nunzio

Brown Harris Stevens

$195,770,000

A townhouse at 21 Beekman Place for $43 million

Raphael De Niro

Douglas Elliman

$189,885,000

A duplex at 969 Fifth Avenue for $25.75 million

Dolly Lenz

Douglas Elliman

$175,875,000

The 18th floor of the Sherry Netherland for $95 million

Daniel Neiditch

River 2 River Realty

$168,319,000

Condo units at the Atelier at 635 West 42nd Street

Leonard Steinberg, Hervé Senequier

Douglas Elliman

$139,930,000

A townhouse at 144 Duane Street for $49.5 million

Leighton Candler

Corcoran Group

$130,250,000

A penthouse at the Mark for $60 million

The Nikki Field Team

Sotheby’s International Realty

$123,434,000

A penthouse at One Fifth Avenue for $12.5 million

Richard Orenstein

Halstead

$118,880,000

A penthouse at 456 West 19th Street for $11.75 million

Kathy Sloane

Brown Harris Stevens

$113,245,000

The 18th floor of the Sherry Netherland for $95 million

Adam Modlin

The Modlin Group

$110,495,000

The penthouse condominium at the Bayard at 76 Crosby Street for $24.5 million

Lisa Lippman and Scott Moore

Brown Harris Stevens

$105,759,000

The 20th floor of 535 West End Avenue for $19.5 million

Roger Erickson

Sotheby’s International Realty

$102,500,000

The 17th floor of 778 Park Avenue for $22.5 million

Thomas Guss

New York Residence

$101,110,000

The penthouse at the Centurion for $39 million

44 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

www.TheRealDeal.com July 2012 35

All-Star Agents slipped to No. 3 in 2012. This year, Del Nunzio came in at No. 6, with 12 properties worth $195.77 million. Among her current listings: a $43

who declined to comment for this story, often works with fellow Sotheby’s broker Meredyth Smith. The two sold a penthouse at 730 Park Avenue in December

precisely what the property is and they’ll come in droves,” she said. “The money stays the same — the pockets change.” The notoriously press-shy Boardman,

“The money stays the same — the pockets change.” PAULA DEL NUNZIO, BROWN HARRIS STEVENS

Paula Del Nunzio has the listing for a $43 million townhouse at 21 Beekman Place.

million townhouse at 21 Beekman Place with views of the East River. Like Burger, Del Nunzio said she works alone except for a “superb” assistant. She does occasionally partner with other agents, “depending on the nature of the property.” For example, she and Burger are currently working together to market a nine-room penthouse at the prewar co-op 1088 Park Avenue. Del Nunzio said no matter what the market conditions, she relies on the same strategy. “I am always trying to customize a marketing plan and presentation of a property, so the buyers will know RANK NAME

John Gomes and Fredrik Eklund

to hedge funder Daniel Benton for $39 million, and recently represented Boardman’s brother-in-law, RFR Realty President Aby Rosen, in the $47 million sale of a townhouse at 22 East 71st Street to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani. On her own, Boardman is the listing agent for a $14 million unit at 19 East 72nd Street. Sample and Powers, by contrast, have worked together on every listing for the past 20 years, ever since Powers left the hotel business to join Sample at Corcoran. In early May they had only five listings on the market and one in contract, down from 10 at this time last year, but one of them is the $125 million Pierre penthouse. Sample and Powers sold the apartment to the Zweigs in 1999 for $21.5 million. The Zweigs are “friends of ours and long-, long-time clients,” Sample told TRD. “We have a history with them.” Still, “every firm in town” pitched the family for an opportunity to list the iconic prewar penthouse, which occupies the top three floors of the Pierre, Sample said. Some firms, she said, even suggested listing it for as much as $200 million. “It’s very difficult to price apartments,” Sample said. She said the high price of the Zweig triplex, however, is justified by the fact that the apartment is “irreplaceable.” Although she declined to specify the co-op’s exact square footage, she said the price per square foot is “well below $10,000,” which makes the price “very compelling” compared to other apartments on the market now asking $15,000. Sample and Powers are also listing a $50 million penthouse at the Mandarin Oriental at 80 Columbus Circle.

Teaming up Other top brokers choose to work in teams, hiring other agents to show their

Deborah Grubman is listing a penthouse at One Beacon Court for $115 million.

FIRM

APTS

TOWNH0USES

IN CONTRACT LISTING $ VOLUME

Douglas Elliman

LISTINGS INCLUDE:

$92,207,800

The penthouse at 111 Mercer Street for $12.5 million

Ilan Bracha

Keller Williams NYC

$88,306,000

A triplex at 817 Fifth Avenue for $19.75 million

Andrew Anderson

Douglas Elliman

$82,640,000

Exclusive marketing assignment at 400 Fifth Avenue

Melanie Lazenby and Dina Lewis

Douglas Elliman

$77,645,000

Exclusive marketing assignment at the Whitman at 21 East 26th Street

Jed Garfield

Leslie J. Garfield & Co.

$77,400,000

A townhouse at 12 East 96th Street for $30 million

Daniela Kunen

Douglas Elliman

$73,760,000

Time Warner Center, #64CE, for $34.5 million

Gail Sankarsingh

Douglas Elliman

$72,570,000

Exclusive marketing assignment at 400 Fifth Avenue

The Deanna Kory Team

Corcoran Group

$72,508,000

The penthouse at 1235 Park Avenue for $9.85 million

Alexis Bodenheimer and Cathy Franklin

Brown Harris Stevens

$70,105,000

Unit #6/7 at 820 Park Avenue for $24.75 million

Sharon Baum and David Enloe

Corcoran Group

$69,085,000

The eighth floor of 1020 Fifth Avenue for $20 million

James Flowers

Douglas Elliman

$68,550,000

The penthouse at 166 Perry Street for $25 million

S. Christopher Halstead

Halstead

$66,850,000

A five-bedroom at the Majestic for $45 million

Doron Zwickel

CORE

$66,800,000

Marketing assignments at 93 Worth

Darren Kearns

Corcoran Group

$66,584,000

The penthouse at 419 Broome Street for $19.4 million

Henry Hershkowitz and Heather McDonough

Douglas Elliman

$65,365,000

A duplex penthouse at the Sky Lofts for $44 million

Patricia Vance Team

Douglas Elliman

$65,101,000

A three-bedroom at 141 Fifth Avenue for $5.6 million

The Robby Browne team

Corcoran Group

$63,980,000

The 14th floor of Superior Ink for $31.9 million

The Noble Black Team

Corcoran Group

$63,673,000

A townhouse at 122 Waverly Place for $16.5 million

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 45

All-Star Agents listings, schedule appointments and help bring in new business. Grubman, for example, leads Corcoran’s Deborah Grubman Team, which is made up of three agents — senior vice president David Dubin, senior associate Paul Albano and salesperson Marianna Klaiman — and a full-time driver. The team set-up represents a change for Grubman, who for years worked as a partner with broker Carol Cohen, who left Corcoran in 2010 in the midst of a lawsuit involving Cohen’s rent-stabilized apartment at 737 Park Avenue. For Grubman, having a team has “made my life much easier in many ways, because just the scheduling of appointments has become a full-time job,” she said. “I’m sort of the face of the team and that’s very nice, but the back office is just as important, because if they don’t do their job right, it’s not an efficient team.” Grubman declined to comment on the One Beacon Court listing, saying that her clients appreciate her discretion. She is also listing several other pricey apartments across the city, including a five-bedroom duplex at 158 Mercer Street for $42 million. Raphael De Niro of Douglas Elliman, who with 22 listings worth $189.89 million moved to No. 7 from No. 20 last year, also heads a team. De Niro joined Elliman in 2004, and said he has been building up his team ever since. It’s now grown to seven other agents, including his wife, Claudine. “I’ve been selective with who I bring on to the team,” De Niro said. “There hasn’t been a lot of turnover, and I haven’t added additional people in a while.” The team nearly doubled the value of its listings in the past year, which De Niro attributes to its focus on exclusives. “I’ve put an emphasis for myself and my team to become listing agents, and focus on winning every pitch,” De Niro said. “We take those really seriously, and pull out all the stops.” RANK NAME

Hilary Landis

De Niro made headlines last July when he and fellow Elliman broker Victoria Logvinsky listed developer Steven Klar’s penthouse at CitySpire for $100 million, a record-high asking price for Manhattan at the time. The unit was taken off

the market in January, and has since resurfaced. It is now listed with Klar’s Long Island brokerage, Klar Realty. “Douglas Elliman, they definitely did promote it well,” Klar told The Real Deal last month. But after the exclusive ex-

pired, he decided that he would let Klar Realty “take a shot at it.” De Niro said the highly publicized listing, which was widely criticized as being grossly overpriced, was something of a mixed blessing.

This 16-room penthouse at 52 East 72nd Street is on the market with John Burger for $21.95 million.

This duplex at 969 Fifth Avenue is on the market with Raphael De Niro of Douglas Elliman for $25.75 million.

FIRM

APTS

TOWNH0USES

IN CONTRACT LISTING $ VOLUME

Corcoran Group

“My name went around the world in the course of weeks, and I don’t know if that would have happened any other way,” De Niro said. “Some might say it hurt my reputation in certain ways. Others say, ‘no press is bad press.’ The jury is still out.” Another top team is Corcoran’s Carrie Chiang Group. The team, which includes Janet Wang, Richard Phan and Julian Berkeley, had 52 listings worth $258.18 million — putting Chiang in the No. 4 spot, down from No. 2 last year. Chiang rarely speaks to the press and declined to be interviewed for this story. But her team is listing NFL president David Seldin’s townhouse at 131 East 64th

LISTINGS INCLUDE:

$63,490,000

A duplex penthouse at 885 Park Avenue for $35 million

Stephen McRae

Sotheby’s International Realty

$62,985,000

A penthouse at the Munitions Building for $24.5 million

Giampiero Rispo

Domus Realty

$62,300,000

A four-bedroom at the Plaza for $55 million

The Tamir Shemesh Group

Corcoran Group

$62,085,000

A four-bedroom at the Mandarin Oriental for $25 million

Asher Alcobi

Peter-Ashe

$61,170,000

A townhouse at 53 East 64th Street for $26 million

The Alexander Team

Douglas Elliman

$60,439,000

A three-bedroom at Trump Tower for $17.5 million

Ryan Serhant and Nick Jabbour

Nest Seekers International

$60,010,900

A penthouse duplex at the Alexander for $13.9 million

Erica Miller and Ariana Meyerson

Cantor-Pecorella

$57,290,000

A penthouse at 250 West Street for $42 million

Howard Margolis

Douglas Elliman

$57,285,000

A townhouse at 150 Central Park South for $16.9 million

Sabrina Saltiel

Douglas Elliman

$57,273,000

The 15th floor of 995 Fifth Avenue for $32 million

Rana Williams and Cheryl Aiello

Keller Williams NYC

$55,950,000

A townhouse at 349 West 86th Street for $50 million

Matthew Pravda

Leslie J. Garfield & Co.

$55,900,000

A townhouse at 11 East 89th Street for $22.5 million

Ariel Cohen

Douglas Elliman

$54,187,000

Exclusive marketing assignments at 75 Wall Street

Richard Steinberg

Warburg Realty

$52,525,000

The 29th floor of the Pierre for $27 million

Gilad Azaria

Douglas Elliman

$51,644,000

A three-bedroom at the Ritz-Carlton for $7.95 million

Jason Karadus and James Cox Jr.

Town Residential

$51,045,000

The 10th floor of 1 York Street for $22 million

Paul Kolbusz and Sara Gelbard

Corcoran Group

$49,995,000

A seven-bedroom at 10 West 10th Street for $27.5 million

Mary Fitzgibbons

Brown Harris Stevens

$49,925,000

A five-bedroom at 775 Park Avenue for $20 million

The Richard Nassimi Group

Corcoran Group

$48,499,000

Exclusive marketing assignment at the W Downtown Hotel and Residences

646 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com 4 March 2012 www.TheRealDeal.com

www.TheRealDeal.com July 2012 37

All-Star Agents Street for $19.9 million, a townhouse at 120 East 71st Street for $16.9 million and two penthouses at the Cassa Hotel and Residences at 70 West 45th Street for $20.3 million and $16 million, respectively. For years, Chiang battled Elliman’s Dolly Lenz for the No. 1 spot on TRD’s top agents list. This year, Lenz fell from No. 4 to No. 8 in the rankings, with 11 listings worth $175.88 million. Lenz, who did not respond to requests for comment, is co-listing a full-floor unit at the Sherry Netherland with Brown Harris Stevens’ Kathy Sloane for $95 million, and a penthouse at 1 East 62nd Street for $29.5 million. New to the top 10 this year is Dan Neiditch, president of the boutique firm River 2 River Realty. Neiditch moved to No. 9 with $168.3 million in listings, up from No. 23 last year. Neiditch said he started his firm about 10 years ago as a branch of his family’s real estate firm, which manages and owns buildings. The seven-agent brokerage handles rentals and sales at the Atelier at 635 West 42nd Street, where its headquarters are located and where Neiditch has been president of the building’s condo board for the past seven years. Neiditch is currently listing a block of nine apartments at the building with an asking price of $85 million. If combined as advertised, the units would become a 10,000-square-foot apartment spanning the entire 45th floor of the Atelier. While most of his listings are at RANK NAME

Leila Stone

the Atelier, Neiditch does have listings in other buildings. In November, for example, Neiditch sold beer heiress Daphne Guinness’s apartment at the former Stanhope hotel at 995 Fifth Avenue for $11.3 million. Rounding out the top 10 is Elliman’s Leonard Steinberg, with $139.93 million in listings. Steinberg started the LuxuryLoft team 11 years ago, with fellow agent Hervé Senequier and an assistant. Now, the team has 10 members. “As much as there was something wonderful about being on my own, there’s something to be said about having a team to support you, and to work together to make things better,” said Steinberg, whose team also ranked No. 10 last year. “I think it’s been very successful.” Steinberg is currently listing a mansion at 144 Duane Street in Tribeca for $49.5 million, and an apartment at 40 Bond Street for $26 million. And along with De Niro, Steinberg and his team are handling sales at the new condo development 150 Charles Street. (However, due to the lack of public listings at the building, none of the units were counted in TRD’s rankings.) Steinberg said he’s been working on marketing 150 Charles Street for five years. “I really dedicated myself to 150 Charles Street,” Steinberg said. “While everyone says we’ve been this overnight success … there were five years of meetings and product planning and tweaking the product again and again. It was pretty intense.” TRD

Leonard Steinberg is listing a mansion at 144-144 Duane Street in Tribeca for $49.5 million.

FIRM

APTS

TOWNH0USES

IN CONTRACT LISTING $ VOLUME

Sotheby’s International Realty

LISTINGS INCLUDE:

$48,200,000

A five-bedroom at 765 Park Avenue for $25 million

Beverly Cole

Key-Ventures

$48,000,000

A townhouse at 57 East 64th Street for $48 million

Richard Ferrari and Drew Glick

Brown Harris Stevens

$47,340,000

The sixth floor of 521 Park Avenue for $19.95 million

Brett Miles and Susan Green

Town Residential

$46,710,000

A three-bedroom at 165 Charles Street for $9 million

Timothy Hsu

Douglas Elliman

$46,585,000

A three-bedroom at One Beacon Court for $15 million

Ammanda Espinal and David Greczek

Douglas Elliman

$45,679,000

Exclusive marketing assignment for the Azure condo at 333 East 91st Street

Bernice Leventhal and Sarah Thompson

Corcoran Group

$45,420,000

A four-bedroom at the Plaza for $26.9 million

Jaar-mel Sloane

Sloane Square

$44,000,000

A three-bedroom at the Mark for $9.95 million

Guida De Carvalhosa

Brown Harris Stevens

$43,445,000

A townhouse at 755 Greenwich Street for $29 million

Janice Chang

Douglas Elliman

$42,335,000

A three-bedroom at One Beacon Court for $15 million

Diane Johnson and Walter Larkin

Douglas Elliman

$42,031,000

A five-bedroom co-op apartment at One Sutton Place South, 5A, for $18 million

Laurance Kaiser

Key-Ventures

$41,440,000

A four-bedroom at One Sutton Place South for $18 million

Siim Hanja

Brown Harris Stevens

$40,585,000

The fourth floor at 84 Mercer Street for $7.59 million

Andy Kim, Moshe Balalo, Alon Chadad

BLU Realty Group

$39,798,995

A townhouse at 170 East 80th Street for $27 million

Deirdre DeRisi

Douglas Elliman

$39,574,000

A penthouse at 90 Riverside Drive for $7 million

Alexa Lambert

Stribling & Associates

$39,090,000

A penthouse at 1200 Fifth Avenue for $12.5 million

Ann Cutbill Lenane

Douglas Elliman

$38,349,000

A four-bedroom at 222 Riverside Drive for $5 million

Brian Babst

Corcoran Group

$38,323,000

A townhouse at 133-135 West 13th Street for $15.9 million

Pat Slochower

Douglas Elliman

$37,645,000

A five-bedroom at the Hampshire House for $16.9 million

Bonnie Chajet

Warburg Realty

$37,565,000

A two-bedroom at the River House for $12.2 million

Source: Data comes from On-Line Residential Inc. and includes Manhattan residential sales listings (apartments and townhouses with no commercial/retail component) that were active or in contract on May 1 and had been updated within the previous 30 days. Known teams and partnerships are counted as a single entity. Listings shared by two or more agents are counted as full listings for each agent. On-site agents who work exclusively for a developer have not been counted. However, if an agent works for a brokerage firm, he/she has been included on this list, and new development listings were included in agents’ totals.

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 47

Shvo’s debut as developer could be ‘make or break’ moment High-cost basis of West Chelsea site could prove big challenge for bad-boy marketer, sources say

BY KATHERINE CLARKE ichael Shvo, the bad boy marketing maven who made his name during the real estate boom by hosting celebrity parties and spearheading over-the-top marketing campaigns, recently posed for a news photographer on the High Line in a dark suit and a crisp white shirt, his hair slicked back. In the background, less glamorous: a Lukoil gas station that sits on the West Chelsea parcel he just purchased in partnership with developer Victor Homes. Shvo and Victor plan to build high-end, artthemed condominiums on the site, which cost them a record $800 per buildable square foot. While Shvo might be positioning himself as a comeback kid, one who has graduated from brokerage to development, some industry

vestment will require Shvo to reach for prices of up to $3,000 per square foot, sources said, which would put the units at the top end of the market for the neighborhood. Stephen Kliegerman, president of Terra Development Marketing, said he had clients interested in the property but “after thorough research and evaluation, they weren’t able to wrap their arms around that kind of number.” Kliegerman declined to name the clients. While Shvo would not comment for this story, he told the Wall Street Journal that he considered the land inexpensive. “The vision for this property relies on the game-changing real estate mindset that I believed in and acted on previously,” he said, rhyming off words like “luxury,” “authentic” and “self-defining.”

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Michael Shvo, top, is transforming himself from broker to developer. Above, a Lukoil gas station sits on the property at 239 10th Avenue in West Chelsea that Shvo bought with Victor Homes.

insiders are not persuaded that he has the savvy to cut it as a serious developer, especially given the hefty chunk of change he paid for the West Chelsea site. Shvo is probably betting on his sophisticated marketing skills to convince buyers of value, sources told The Real Deal, but given his cost basis, he might struggle to make the numbers work. “He’s got to shoot for the sky on this,” said Andrew Gerringer, managing director of new business development at the Marketing Directors. “It’s a relatively risky proposition. If you look at the comps in the area, they really don’t show those kinds of numbers.” Shvo and his partners paid $23.5 million for the site, according to reports, more than $4 million more than its last asking price; they will have to pay more for the additional air rights necessary to build a project totaling more than 40,000 square feet. That in-

But, ironically, it’s Shvo’s “game-changing mindset” that might get him in trouble, some sources speculated, since he is truly a child of the real estate bubble. Consumers have become more educated about the macro real estate landscape after the 2008 housing bust, growing savvier about deciphering value from the buzz that was Shvo’s specialty, they said. “They’re trying to bring value to the parcel through the message and that’s antithetical to what we feel is a conservative way to develop real estate, commodity first,” said one developer who has been active in the West Chelsea market. “We start with really good dirt and then try to maximize the value of that with an appropriately designed message, product and overall development strategy. I suspect the market is a little smarter than [Shvo] is giving them credit for.” The site, at 239 10th Avenue, was marContinued on page 100

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BROOKLYN

VS.

MANHATTAN

The not-so-outer borough Manhattan

Brooklyn

per month,

$2,560

$3,195

up +11.3%

up +6.7%

In some Brooklyn nabes, home prices now nearly as expensive as Manhattan’s

BY KATHERINE CLARKE anhattan estate brokers Ari Harkov and Warner Lewis recently started searching for apartments in the West Village on behalf of a client, who wanted to pay around $650,000 for a one-bedroom. Not satisfied by the inventory they found in that price range, they expanded the search

37.8 percent in the past five years to $792,500, according to data provided to The Real Deal by the real estate listings website StreetEasy. By contrast, the median price in the West Village rose by only 4.34 percent during that same period, to $895,000 (the chart on this page shows figures for the broader Greenwich Village area).

ing for a place in Brooklyn and they say, ‘I want to move there because I want more space for my money,’ I don’t beat around the bush,” said Lindsay Barton Barrett, a broker from the Corcoran Group with listings in both boroughs. “I immediately tell them they’re going to be disappointed.” This month, TRD analyzed market

price for Manhattan was $3,195, an annual increase of 6.7 percent. When it comes to sales, many Brooklyn neighborhoods are still cheaper than comparable areas of Manhattan, but the difference is smaller than it used to be. In the first quarter, the median sales price for a Brooklyn apartment shot up 14 percent to $515,000 year-over-year,

Brooklyn Heights vs. Greenwich Village sales MEDIAN LISTING PRICE 2008

MEDIAN LISTING PRICE 2013

% CHANGE

Greenwich Village

$880,393

$1,095,000

+24.4%

Brooklyn Heights

$575,000

$792,500

+37.8%

Source: StreetEasy data from the first quarter of 2008 vs. the first quarter of 2013.

Brooklyn Heights vs. Greenwich Village, average monthly rent 2010

2013

% CHANGE

Greenwich Village

$3,267

$4,055

+24.1%

Brooklyn Heights

$2,368

$2,993

+26.4%

Source: MNS. Data compares average monthly rents from March 2010 to March 2013.

to Brooklyn Heights, thinking that would yield much more space for the money. They were wrong. Brooklyn hasn’t offered up the massive discount their client was hoping for, said Lewis, who works out of the Halstead Property’s West Village office. These days, “it’s not a dramatic difference” in price between one-bedrooms in the West Village and comparable units in Brooklyn Heights, Lewis said. “I think you’re often looking at a 10 percent differential.” In fact, the median asking price for a Brooklyn Heights apartment has risen

52 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

Manhattan or Brooklyn: The choice used to be an easy one. Those who could afford it chose “the city,” not the dowdy stepsister across the river, with its longer commutes and cheaper home prices. Today, though, Brooklyn is the top pick of more and more harried urbanites, and the proof is in the numbers. With sale prices and especially rents rising sharply in Brooklyn, brokers said, many home-seekers find that popular neighborhoods no longer come at the discount they’re expecting. “When I get a call from a buyer look-

data to find out how real estate prices in prime Brooklyn neighborhoods compare to their Manhattan counterparts. The data show that rents have been rising much faster in Brooklyn than in Manhattan, significantly narrowing the pricing gap between the two boroughs. In March, the median rental price for a one-bedroom apartment in prime Brooklyn neighborhoods was $2,560, an 11.3 percent jump from the same month of last year, according to a recent market report from the brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman. By contrast, the median rental

Brooklyn’s most expensive single-family home sale was the $12 million deal for 70 Willow Street, a townhouse once owned by author Truman Capote.

Elliman’s data shows, while the median price in Manhattan rose just 5.9 percent to $820,555. And at least one popular Brooklyn neighborhood, Williamsburg, is now pricier than the comparable Manhattan neighborhood across the river: the Lower East Side. (The East Village is still more expensive than Williamsburg.) There is one area where even prime Brooklyn neighborhoods represent a dramatic discount from Manhattan, however: the very high end of the sales market. “Your money is going a lot further if you’re buying a townhouse or a very large

www.TheRealDeal.com January 2011 25

Brooklyn apartment in Brooklyn,” said Barrett, who is handling sales at the new boutique condo 123 Fort Greene Place in Fort Greene, where prices start at $749,000 for a one-bedroom. “But if you’re looking for a two-bedroom apartment, the prices are much more similar.”

Casting a wide net It’s no secret that Brooklyn home prices have been on the rise for years, as the borough’s idyllic brownstones increasingly lure artsy buyers out of Manhattan. And in the past few years, brokers told The Real Deal, they’ve seen more home-seekers looking simultaneously at Manhattan and Brooklyn, often consider-

vs.

West Village and Carroll Gardens. “It’s like those neighborhoods are an extension of the Manhattan market.” And while Brooklyn has increased in popularity, some areas of Manhattan have yet to fully recover from the price drops they saw during the real estate downturn. Median prices in Murray Hill, for example, were $547,500 in the first quarter, down 45 percent from the same quarter five years ago, according to StreetEasy, while the median price in the South Street Seaport area is $680,000, down 54.7 percent from 2008 (those figures may be skewed by a few outlier high-end sales). The city’s current inventory shortage — available Manhattan listings fell by 34

Manhattan Manhattan areas. Park Slope, for example, has long been viewed as essentially a cheaper version of the Upper West Side. Five years ago, according to StreetEasy, the median asking price of an apartment on the Upper West Side was $919,800, significantly more expensive than the $625,730 median in Park Slope. That gap has now shrunk. The median sale price for an apartment in Park Slope was $675,000 in the first quarter, a 7.9 percent jump from the first quarter of 2008, StreetEasy’s data shows. During the same time period, the median price on the Upper West Side dropped by 2.5 percent to $897,000.

per square foot per year, compared with $72 in Tribeca, according to MNS. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom in Dumbo is $3,543, compared to $5,502 in Tribeca. For sales, the average price per square foot for a Dumbo apartment in March was $1,261, compared to $1,702 per square foot in Tribeca, MNS found. The overall median asking price for a Dumbo apartment in the first quarter was $959,000, according to StreetEasy, while the median price for Tribeca was $2.31 million. Home-seekers looking at both Brooklyn Heights and the West Village will find that the median asking price for a Brook-

Park Slope vs. Upper West Side sales median ASKING price 2008

median ASKING price 2013

% change

Upper West Side

$919,800

$897,000

-2.5%

Park Slope

$625,730

$675,000

+7.9%

Source: StreetEasy data from the first quarter of 2008 vs. the first quarter of 2013.

Park Slope vs. Upper West Side, average monthly rent 2010

2013

% change

Upper West Side

$2,733

$3,069

+12.3%

Park Slope

$1,899

$2,319

+22.1%

Source: MNS. Data compares average monthly rents from March 2010 to March 2013.

This 2,300-square-foot carriage house at 21 Grace Court Alley in Brooklyn Heights has an asking price of $3.5 million.

Williamsburg vs. East Village sales median LISTING price 2008

median LISTING price 2013

% change

East Village

$822,500

$667,500

-18.8%

Williamsburg

$598,750

$585,493

-2.2%

Source: StreetEasy data from the first quarter of 2008 vs. the first quarter of 2013.

Williamsburg vs. East Village, average monthly rent 2010

2013

% change

East Village

$3,042

$3,533

+16.8%

Williamsburg

$2,410

$2,927

+21.5%

The priciest townhouse ever sold in Manhattan was the Harkness Mansion on East 75th Street, which went for $53 million in 2006.

Source: MNS. Data compares average monthly rents from March 2010 to March 2013.

ing neighborhoods with similar vibes. For instance, brokers said, a buyer looking for a loft might consider Dumbo and Tribeca, both known for their cobblestoned streets and converted warehouses; longtime Upper West Siders are drawn to Park Slope, with its preponderance of strollers and access to Prospect Park; and those looking for nightlife and a gritty feel often consider Williamsburg alongside the East Village and Lower East Side. And brokers said they’re now seeing a lot of overlap between Brooklyn Heights and the West Village, both pricey neighborhoods with historic brownstones and tree-lined streets. “Now you’re finding that people are more open to both boroughs, not all of both boroughs but [certain neighborhoods],” said Terry Naini, a Town Residential broker with listings in both the

percent year-over-year in the first quarter — has accelerated the shrinking price gap between the two boroughs, as wouldbe Manhattan buyers widen their search to include Brooklyn, according to Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers. Meanwhile, Brooklyn maintenance and monthly charges have also been on the uptick as buildings there “catch up with the times,” Barrett said. “There was a time when the average maintenance in Brooklyn — outside of BrooklynHeights — was probably about 50 percent of the average in Manhattan,” she said. “Now, if it is $1.50 in Manhattan, it’s probably $1 in Brooklyn.” As a result of these changes, some sought-after Brooklyn neighborhoods are now almost as expensive as similar

64 March 2012 www.TheRealDeal.com

There’s even less of a price difference between the two neighborhoods when it comes to rentals. In Park Slope, renters now pay an annual average of $50 per square foot, compared to $59 on the Upper West Side, according to data provided to TRD by the brokerage MNS. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Park Slope in March was $2,319, MNS found, compared to $3,069 on the Upper West Side. That’s a narrower spread than in the same month of 2010, when Park Slope’s average was $1,899, compared to $2,733 on the Upper West Side. Prices in Dumbo and Tribeca are also moving closer together, although Tribeca is still considerably more expensive. In Dumbo, average rents have jumped 10 percent over the last three years to $67

lyn Heights apartment in the first quarter was $792,500, a 37.8 percent jump from $575,000 five years ago, according to StreetEasy. By comparison, the average price of a West Village apartment grew by just 4.34 percent during that time, to $895,000. Manhattanites may be able to find more of a discount in Williamsburg, which was hard hit by the real estate downturn; a slew of new condos opened in the neighborhood right around the time of Lehman Brothers’ collapse. “The timing of all the waterfront towers going up sort of coincided with [the collapse of ] Lehman,” Harkov said. Williamsburg, he added, “was the Miami of New York.” The median asking price for an apartContinued on page 96

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 53

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New York’s new investors A look at the young firms buying — and selling — for big profit, and how they’re finding deals

By Adam Pincus s New York City sales began recovering from the paralyzing real estate downturn, scores of investors worldwide launched companies and funds to buy up what they expected would be a windfall of distressed assets here, with billions of dollars of global wealth competing to back them. But these newcomers faced competition for properties from aggressive, established buyers such as SL Green Realty, Extell Development, Thor Equities and the Chetrit Group. Still, a few new companies have succeeded in landing significant deals and cobbling together portfolios since the recession. This month, The Real Deal used data from the research firm Real Capital Analytics to identify 10 new players that have spent at least $80 million buying two or more New York properties since 2010. Some of these new companies have founders with decades of experience in New York City real estate. Jeffrey Kaplan, who launched Meadow Partners, was at the

private equity giant Westbrook Partners. And Douglas Eisenberg left Urban American, one of the largest owners of rent-regulated apartment buildings in the New York area, to start A&E Real Estate in 2011. Others are upstarts hungry to make their mark on the industry. Sam Schneider, 35, and Daniel Glaser, 29, for example, are former Eastern Consolidated brokers who launched Imperium Capital in 2010. Many of these new firms said their biggest challenge is not finding investors, but sourcing deals in a crowded market. “There are millions of companies starting,” Schneider said. “The money is not the issue — it’s getting control of the properties.” To beat the competition, some of these new players seek out off-market deals and focus on properties less than $50 million. Deals that size are “under the radar of the big players,” said Mody Kidon, chairman of three-year-old Alto Investments. Now, for a closer look at these up-and-coming investors.

Meadow Partners Founded: 2009 Principals: Jeffrey Kaplan

and Timothy Yantz effrey Kaplan, 47, and Timothy Yantz, 34, left Westbrook Partners in 2009 to launch the opportunistic investment firm Meadow Partners. Meadow closed its first fund, which raised$200 million, in 2009, and is about halfway through raising a second fund with a target of $400 million. Since 2010, the young company has acquired over $530 million worth of New York City assets. In a joint venture with Madison Capital, Meadow bought 655 Fifth Avenue, a prime retail asset fully leased to the luxury store Salvatore Ferragamo. And Meadow partnered with Benjamin Shaoul’s Magnum Real Estate Group to buy seven East Village buildings with 115 residential apartments and retail for a total of $25.1 million. In April, they sold the portfolio to a group led by the Kushner Companies for $49 million. Meadow has an unusually diverse investment strategy, acquiring real estate assets through a variety of ownership structures: as a direct owner, a non-managing equity partner or through distressed debt. That’s similar to the wide-ranging approach the principals took at Westbrook, Yantz said, but they’re now focused on New York City rather than deals around the world. “We are taking that institutional background and applying it on a local level,” Yantz said. Because well-publicized deals often attract buyers with access to “cheaper capital than us,” Yantz added, Meadow looks for off-market sales. That means “calling everyone from lawyers to title agents to leasing brokers to find deals,” he said. And while Westbrook typically invested in transactions above $100 million, Meadow focuses on deals under $75 mil-

Timothy Yantz, left, and Jeffrey Kaplan of Meadow Partners at 655 Fifth Avenue, which they acquired with partners in 2010.

lion, where there are more opportunities, Yantz said. At that price point, “the market is less efficient,” he said. “A lot of sellers are legacy owners who have not been incented to invest in their property.” Meadow, which is looking to hire its 15th employee, has encountered some challenges. In August 2010, the firm paid Joel Wiener’s Pinnacle Group $35 million for a 70 percent interest in an eight-building, rent-regulated portfolio. Meadow then wanted to sell the properties, but claimed in a February lawsuit that Pinnacle was blocking that effort. The suit has been resolved amicably, Yantz said.

A&E Real Estate Founded: 2011 Principals: Douglas Eisenberg and

PHOTOGRAPH OF 2013 KAPLANwww.TheRealDeal.com AND YANTZ FOR THE REAL DEAL BY CHRIS MARTIN 32 January

several others, who were unidentified ome real estate firms beg for attention from the media. Others, such as A&E Real Estate, do their best to stay under the radar. Its founder, Douglas Eisenberg, declined to comment for this article and has refused to identify the other principals. The firm, which focuses on rent-regulated apartment buildings, doesn’t even have a website. Eisenberg worked for years as a principal in Urban American, his family’s multi-family apartment business. Launched by Eisenberg’s father, Philip, the New Jersey–based firm was one of the most active buyers of rent-regulated housing during the mid-2000s. Douglas left the family firm in 2011, and since then his new company has purchased at least $433 million in apartment

buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn, data from CoStar Group revealed. For example, A&E partnered with AllianceBernstein US Real Estate Partners last year to buy the 113-unit residential rental building 393 West End Avenue in Manhattan for $55.6 million. A few months later, the partners sold it for $68.3 million. A&E, headquartered at 1065 Sixth Avenue, has typically done deals directly with property owners or through “quiet-brokered” offerings, which have limited marketing. But the firm has also bought and sold apartment buildings through large firms such as CBRE Group.

Imperium Capital Founded: 2010 Principals: Sam Schneider

and Daniel Glaser

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 55

Pr o f i l e

ince Sam Schneider, 35, and Daniel Glaser, 29, founded Imperium Capital in 2010, they’ve completed a string of mostly off-market Manhattan acquisitions totaling $342.5 million, according to RCA. The new firm has also partnered with some of the largest real estate companies in the city, including Laurence Gluck’s Stellar Management and the Chera family’s Crown Acquisitions. To do this, Schneider and Glaser have leveraged connections they made while working at now-defunct developer KMG Partners, then later as brokers at Eastern Consolidated. In fact, Glaser said, working at Eastern Consolidated helped them formulate

panned out. This time, Gluck jumped at the chance. Imperium has also done high-profile retail deals, such as the December 2011 purchase of the Soho Apple store building at 103 Prince Street for $70.85 million. Imperium partnered with Crown and Centurion Realty on the deal. Imperium, headquartered at 512 Seventh Avenue, now has seven employees.

East End Capital Partners Founded: 2011 Principals: Jonathon Yormak

and David Peretz onathon Yormak, 41, and David Peretz, 34, both worked at Broadway Partners before the aggressive investment firm lost

assets and reposition them. For example, East End and GreenOak joined with another partner, Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty, in December to buy the 550,000-square foot Young & Rubicam building at 285 Madison Avenue. The partners, who paid $189 million for the building, expect to invest another $100 million in rehabilitations and upgrades, then re-lease it after the advertising agency leaves, Yormak said. “We asset and property manage,” Yormak said. “We do everything, soup to nuts.” That strategy worked out well at 256 West 38th Street, a half-empty Garment Center building that East End purchased for $30 million in 2011. After millions in

Tishman Speyer alum Steve Grant, now of ClearRock Properties

vantage of distressed properties. To form the company, Martin Nussbaum, 37, of Atlantic Realty Development, partnered with Joshua Zegen, 38, and Brian Shatz, 37, co-founders of the Midtown-based lender Madison Realty Capital. The companies remain closely affiliated; Silverstone and Madison Realty share an office at 825 Third Avenue, as well as some employees and resources. The trio thought forming a brand new company would make them more nimble than established investors, who would need to manage the troubled pieces of their portfolio. “We had the opportunity to work fresh and spend 100 percent of our time working with new assets,” Nussbaum said. Silverstone, which now has 25 employees, has acquired 15 properties worth some $273 million since 2010. Most of its holdings are mid-size apartment buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The firm has had at least one homerun sale so far. In January 2011, Silverstone purchased 157-159 Suffolk Street on the Lower East Side, an apartment building with ground floor retail, for $8.8 million. Then it sold the 33-unit building for $18 million last December, doubling its original purchase price in less than two years. Buying buildings has since become more difficult, now that “the market is getting a little bit more expensive,” Nussbaum said. “We like Manhattan in general and Brooklyn in general,” he said, “but we are definitely more cautious in the way we underwrite.”

Stone Street Properties Founded: 2011 Principals: Robert Morgenstern

and Jeffrey Kaye s the city recovered from the recession, residential broker Robert Morgenstern and Gotham Organization vice president Jeffrey Kaye figured apartment buildings would be coming to market, and thought it was a good time to start buying them. Since the two launched Stone Street Properties in January 2011, RCA shows that the Midtown-based firm has spent some $229 million to buy 29 Manhattan and Brooklyn buildings containing nearly 800 apartments. Morgenstern, 38, and Kaye, 40, decided to stick with what they know, so Stone Street focuses on acquiring and managing residential apartment buildings, handling rentals in-house. Rather than buying these buildings individually, Stone Street has purchased several portfolios, twice with Meadow Partners (see previous page). Stone Street has also partnered with the White Plains– based $5.6 billion investment fund Rockwood Capital and H.I.G. Realty Partners, the real estate arm of the global investment giant H.I.G. Capital.

A Sam Schneider, left, and Daniel Glaser of Imperium Capital at the Apple store building at 103 Prince Street, which they bought in 2011 for $70.85 million.

Doug Winshall left Taconic Investment Partners to launch ClearRock Properties.

a broker-like “hunt and peck” strategy for sourcing deals. “We brought the broker mentality to the principal side of the business,” he said. For example, in May 2012 Imperium partnered with Gluck to buy two Soho office buildings — 16-story 161 Sixth Avenue and 10-story 233 Spring Street — for about $200 million. Glaser and Schneider had known the owner for years, Glaser said. “We kept in touch, and for [the seller’s] own reasons, he decided it was time to sell,” Glaser said. At that point, Imperium brought the deal to Gluck, who they’d talked to about other deals, none of which

renovations, the company landed women’s clothing retailer Caché for a 10-year lease deal in early 2012, bringing occupancy up to nearly 90 percent. East End sold the building late last year for $48.6 million. Yormak said he expects the firm to buy $200 million worth of real estate in New York this year.

56 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

most of its holdings during the recession. In early 2011, the two went out on their own, launching Midtown-based East End Capital. East End has moved quickly since then, snapping up deals in Manhattan valued at $329.8 million. In each transaction, East End has obtained equity from GreenOak Real Estate, a new Midtown-based investment fund. (Yormak said GreenOak has been a “fantastic partner,” but that theirs is not a formal partnership, and East End may do deals with or without GreenOak in the future.) East End’s strategy, like many new investors, is to acquire under-performing

Silverstone Property Group Founded: 2009 Principals: Martin Nussbaum,

Joshua Zegen and Brian Shatz Silverstone Property Group was launched in the depths of the downturn to take ad-

PHOTOGRAPH OF SCHNEIDER AND GLASER FOR THE REALJanuary DEAL BY CHRIS www.TheRealDeal.com 2013MARTIN 33

Pr o f i l e They were a bit surprised at how quickly they were able to acquire properties, Morgenstern said. “We did not expect to get this quickly to this phase,” he said. And Stone Street has its eye on even more properties: The 13-person firm expects to buy another 400 Manhattan apartment units by the end of the year, Kaye said.

Trevi Retail Founded: 2011 Principal: Johnny McCarthy

Trevi Retail has made quite a splash since it entered the New York retail market in 2011. Founded by former Vornado Realty Trust executive Rockie Gajwani, Trevi stayed under the radar at first, but slowly gained attention as it snapped up small and medium-size retail locations in Manhattan. With the financial backing of Iowa-based Principal Financial Group, Trevi completed 17 transactions in Manhattan last year, acquiring $162 million worth of retail properties, according to RCA. The properties are widely scattered among the borough’s shopping districts, with concentrations in Chelsea, Greenwich Village and the Upper East Side. But in March, the firm placed Gajwani on administrative leave after allegations that he pilfered money from a subsidiary of Principal Financial; he is no longer with the firm. Despite the accusations against Gajwani, the firm is plowing ahead on deals and maintains its relationship with Principal, according to Johnny McCarthy, the firm’s chief investment officer and current head. “We are currently focused on continued growth,” McCarthy said, though he declined to comment about Gajwani. Trevi is in contract to buy a property priced from $10 million to $15 million, he said, adding that the deal should close within the next two months. Gajwani could not be reached for comment.

Walnut Hill Group Founded: 2010 Principals: Albert Hwang, Jimmy Park and Stephen Yang he founders of Walnut Hill Group all left more established companies to launch the San Francisco–based real estate investment firm. Albert Hwang, an attorney, decamped from the law firm Troutman Sanders; Jimmy Park had been at private equity firm Beacon Capital Partners; and Stephen Yang came from Square Mile Capital Management, also a private equity firm. The four-person firm has made two mid-size investments in Manhattan since 2011, both with partners. First, in an off-market transaction, it paid $43.8

million to buy an interest in the Holiday Inn Express hotel at 13-15 West 45th Street from an investor that wanted to sell its stake. Then last July, Walnut Hill and an unnamed equity partner from Hong Kong paid $65 million for a 143,000-squarefoot office building at 31 West 27th Street, in a deal brokered by Studley, Hwang said. The seller was Sharif El-Gamal’s Soho Properties. Walnut Hill is looking at several New York City deals now in an effort led by Yang but does not have anything under contract. The firm has acquired properties in California as well, yet about half

ClearRock Properties Founded: 2009 Principals: Doug Winshall

and Steve Grant ishman Speyer alum Steve Grant and Taconic Investment Partners’ Doug Winshall teamed up to form ClearRock Properties in 2009. Based at 1221 Sixth Avenue in Midtown, the investment firm focuses on repositioning under-performing office buildings in New York City and throughout the Northeast. This is not the first venture Winshall and Grant have launched together. In 1997, they founded the first New York office of landlord Trizec Properties, building

buildings, he said, and ClearRock offered to buy all of them at one time as a way to “minimize [Yeshiva’s] transaction risk.” But while ClearRock closed on its portion of the deal, which was brokered by Massey Knakal Realty Services, it sold the contract to another firm, which bought the balance of the buildings, a source familiar with the transaction said. “You hope to see something that others don’t, that leads to a more creative approach about how to structure the transaction,” Grant said. He added that the firm is looking around for other acquisitions. “We have our eyes on many” properties, he said.

Alto Investments Founded: 2010 Principals: Mody Kidon

and Yaniv Melamud nother retail-focused firm is Alto Investments, founded by Israel natives Yaniv Melamud and Mody Kidon. Both have extensive experience in finance. Kidon spent 17 years investing in real estate in Israel. Melamud was head of private equity at Israel-based Harel Insurance Investments and Financial Services. In 2010, the two launched Alto. Initially Kidon, 58, and Melamud, 40, raised money for acquisitions from private Israeli investors, then started a small fund. The six-person company, headquartered in Tel Aviv, focuses on retail assets in the U. S., though it owns a few properties in other countries. Alto looks for retail properties with vacancies, which allows the firm to buy them at a discount, fill them with triple-netlease tenants, and then sell at a profit. For example, Alto partnered with an operator from New Jersey, Jacob Klein’s Klein Group, to buy a retail condo at 200 West End Avenue for $31 million in July 2011. Two years later, the condo is fully leased, and the partners are in contract to sell the asset for $51 million, the company said. Kidon said he is keenly aware of Alto’s status as a newcomer, which has made him proceed with caution. “I am just another [buyer] that is coming to the big city,” he said. “I must be very modest, and understand there are a lot of huge players that know the game very well.” The firm has also purchased, by itself or with partners, three other Lower Manhattan retail properties — 111 Fulton Street, 20 Pine Street and 261 Broadway. Alto is now planning a second fund, with $100 million to $150 million, to buy properties in New York City, as well as metropolitan areas nationwide such as Chicago and Boston. The new fund, to be based in the Cayman Islands, will raise money from investors worldwide, Kidon said. Alto plans to stick with retail but could branch into office properties. The company is now in the process of hiring a head of acquisitions for the U.S. TRD

Jeffrey Kaye (left) and Robert Morgenstern from Stone Street Properties

From left: East End Capital partners David Peretz and Jonathon Yormak. Right, top: Walnut Hill Group’s Stephen Yang. Right, bottom: Silverstone Property Group’s Martin Nussbaum.

of its investment value so far has been in Manhattan. “I don’t think of it as a disadvantage,” Hwang said of the firm’s West Coast location. “We are out there [in New York] once a month; we keep our nose in New York’s business, for lack of a better phrase.” In fact, he said, some clients prefer their outsider status, especially their close ties to the technology industry in San Francisco. “A lot of sellers like us because we are not New Yorkers,” he said. “We [are] the buyers from Silicon Valley, investing in Silicon Alley.”

a portfolio of 8 million square feet in just two years, before Grant moved to Tishman Speyer and Winshall headed to Taconic. This time around, however, they don’t expect to rush into a huge portfolio. In fact, it took some three years before they closed on their first New York City purchase: In February, ClearRock paid Yeshiva University $87.5 million for two Manhattan office buildings, at 920 Broadway and 9 East 38th Street. Grant said his five-person firm beat out competing bidders in the deal because it approached the transaction somewhat differently than others. Yeshiva was selling a larger package of

PHOTOGRAPH OF MORGENSTERN AND KAYE FOR THE REAL DEAL BY CHRIS MARTIN; PHOTOGRAPH OF YANG BY ADAM PINCUS; PHOTOGRAPH OF NUSSBAUM BY DEREK ZAHEDI 56 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 57

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163 EAST 64TH STREET - TH 5 BR, 8 BATH

WEB ID: 191625

$27.5 M

875 PARK AVENUE

4 BR, 4.5 BATH

WEB ID: 219421

$9.75 M

We define our neighborhoods as much as they define us. 170 EAST 77TH STREET

5 BR, 5 BATH

730 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10019 212.242.9900

110 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10011 212.633.1000

26 Astor Place New York, NY 10003 212.584.6100

530 LaGuardia Place New York, NY 10012 212.557.5300

88 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10006 212.269.8888

337 West Broadway New York, NY 10013 212.924.4200

45 Horatio Street New York, NY 10014 212.604.0300

239 East 79th Street New York, NY 10075 212.929.1400

WEB ID: 477572

$5.95 M

133 WEST 22ND STREET

3 BR, 3 BATH

WEB ID: 266580

$4.0 M

62 BEACH STREET

3 BR, 3 BATH

WEB ID: 924743

366 BROADWAY

2 BR, 2 BATH

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Town Residential, LLC is a licensed real estate broker and proud member of REBNY. Town Residential LLC is a partnership with Thor Equities LLC.

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60 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

1943: White-only Stuy Town plan approved

he city’s Board of Estimate approved land and tax breaks for Stuyvesant Town even after the developer said the housing project would be for white residents only, 70 years ago this month. Board members voted 11 to 5 to give a 25-year tax exemption and the use of eminent domain to assist Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in building its $50 million development on Manhattan’s East Side. The controversial decision came after a hearing that lasted three and a half hours; more than a dozen in the room spoke against Met Life’s ban on black applicants. Stuy Town discrimination Just days before the vote, Met Life Chairman Frederick Ecker had told the New York Post: “Negroes and whites do not mix.” Law prohibited discrimination in pubic developments but not in private ones. And despite the city’s involvement, Stuyvesant Town was considered a private project. City officials had even backed the partnership with Met Life. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia encouraged insurance companies and banks to use their money to improve the city’s slums; parks commissioner Robert Moses, also a noted builder, championed the suggestion — especially the Met Life plan. Stuyvesant Town’s first apartments opened in 1947. Two years later, the state’s highest court backed Met Life against three black World War II veterans who sued for the right to live in the development. In 1951, the city banned discrimination in all housing projects.

4-color

1971: Largest portfolio, valued at $1.2B, put up for sale

he nation’s largest railroad, the bankrupt Penn Central Transportation, announced it would sell 23 Manhattan parcels worth an estimated $1.2 billion, 42 years ago this month. The offering could have yielded the largest sale of real estate in the city by a single owner to that point. All 23 properties generated about $21 million a year in rent revenue for the railroad, which filed to reorganize in 1970. Included in the assets were the Barclay, Biltmore, Commodore and Roosevelt hotels as well as office buildings at 466 Lexington Avenue and 52 Vanderbilt Street. Also, Penn Central was selling the land under the Met Life building, then named the Pan American Building; the Graybar Building; the Yale Club; and 1.7 million square feet of air 245 Park Avenue rights over Grand Central Terminal, though the station was not on the auction block. The railroad’s properties were scattered over roughly 10 blocks within 29 acres in Midtown, from Madison to Lexington avenues and from 42nd to 52nd streets. Penn Central acquired the parcels along Park Avenue in a merger of Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad. Legal wrangling delayed the package sale; ultimately, different entities bought the parcels — over several years — for less than $1.2 billion. The New York Bank for Savings made the first buy, paying $24 million for 230 Park Avenue in 1976. Two other notable sales: Developer Stanley Stahl ponied up $12 million for the land under 277 Park Avenue and the Loews Corporation laid out $55 million for the Barclay, Biltmore and Roosevelt hotels.

1911: City gets gift of Rockaways beachfront

ew York City acquired more than a mile of beachfront in Rockaway Park that became part of the peninsula’s popular boardwalk, 102 years ago this month. A citizens group purchased the land from the Rockaway Park Improvement Company, a local real estate development company, and turned it over to the city. The price paid: $10,000, a fraction of the property’s $150,000 estimated value. Measuring 5,000 feet long and 400 feet wide, the stretch is now a portion of the boardwalk called Rockaway Park in 1917 Ocean Promenade, constructed in 1922 and 1923, which extends from 110th to 126th street. Compiled by Adam Pincus

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Priciest Homes

The East End’s elite sales High-end sellers took a price hit in the year-end rush By C. J. Hughes

s summer ramps up in the Hamptons, the results of the winter buying season are coming into focus. Much like New York City, the vacationhome enclave on Long Island’s East End has mostly seen a slow and steady recovery since the worst of the recession. But unlike the Manhattan market, where the prices of trophy properties are being pushed sky-high by international buyers, prices in the Hamptons luxury market are still below boom-time levels. The 10 priciest homes sold in the past 12 months ranged from $17.5 to $45 million, for an average of $21.5 million, according to data compiled for The Real Deal by appraisal firm Miller Samuel. That average is down from $24.9 million in 2011 and $25.7 million in 2010. Why the price drop? While Hurricane Sandy had little impact on the area, brokers said, many homeowners — especially those

with big-ticket properties sitting on the market — chopped their prices in the rush to unload before January, when higher capital gains tax rates went into effect. But things seem to be looking up. In March, hedge fund titan Steven Cohen spent $60 million on a 10,000-square-foot spread on East Hampton’s Further Lane, although the trade had not been filed in public records by press time. That’s the largest Hamptons home sale since 2008, when a 6-acre oceanfront spread at 104 Gin Lane in Southampton sold for $60 million. Home sales that expensive, though, are rare in the Hamptons today, and most high-end deals are in the $10 million range, said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel. “The Cohen deal would be the highest in a long time,” Miller said, “but it is somewhat of an outlier compared with what we have been seeing.”

95 Down East Lane, Southampton

his seven-bedroom Cape on a 7.5-acre lot sold in December for $25 million, a substantial discount from its listing price of $29 million, and an even steeper drop from its original 2010 sticker price of $36 million. The listing agent, Hans von Schirach of Saunders & Associates, said the house is likely destined for the wrecking ball. The buyer, also represented by Saunders, is reportedly Dutch investor Louis Reijtenbagh, but von Schirach would not confirm that.

$45 M

58 and 54 Highway Behind the Pond, East Hampton

mystery buyer snapped up these adjoining East Hampton properties, located next to the golf course at the exclusive Maidstone Club, in two separate October transactions for a total of $45 million — one of the biggest deals on the East End in years. Lawyer Salvatore Ranieri sold No. 58, a three-bedroom home designed in 1967 by the architect Hugh Hardy, for $25 million, according to the town assessor’s office. The same month brought the $20 million sale of No. 54, a four-bedroom house on a 1.4-acre parcel with a pool. Records list the buyers of both properties as limited liability corporations — PGR Family Realty for No. 58 and Wyoming East for No. 54. The homes were never publicly listed so it’s unclear which brokers — if any — were involved.

62 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

$24 .65 M

$25 M

20 Drew Lane, East Hampton

8 and 9 Five Rod Highway, Wainscott

eff Blau, CEO of the Related Companies, reportedly snapped up these two properties last summer for a total of $25 million. No. 8 is a six-bedroom home dating back to the 1600s, while No. 9 is an adjacent 2.4-acre property. The listing agent, Dana Trotter of Sotheby’s International Realty, declined to comment on the buyer’s identity, but she did say that a 21-stall horse barn at No. 8, along with its attendant paddocks, is being redeveloped. Trotter initially put the two lots on the market in 2010 with two other parcels for a total of $72 million. The price was then dropped to $57 million. Ultimately, the other two lots, at 109 and 113 Town Line Road, were picked up by a different buyer in April 2012 for $9 million total.

erry Della Femina, an ad executive whose bestselling book inspired the TV series “Mad Men,” sold this eightbedroom home in December for just under $25 million. The home, on 1.7 oceanfront acres just off prestigious Lily Pond Lane, also took some effort to unload. The home first came on the market in 2010 for $40 million, according to the listing agent, Corcoran’s Susan Breitenbach. The price had to be lowered more than a third before the property found a buyer, which Breitenbach attributed to the home’s need to be renovated as well as lingering recessiontriggered uncertainty. “That’s the kind of market we’ve been in,” she said. She declined to comment on the buyer other than to say it was a New York family.

JEFF BLAU PHOTO BY MARC SCRIVO

PRICIEST HOMES 1730 MEADOW LANE, SOUTHAMPTON

329 HIGHLAND TERRACE, BRIDGEHAMPTON

1360 MEADOW LANE, SOUTHAMPTON

The Hamptons’ top listings

espite the recent round of discount sales in the Hamptons, today’s sellers are going for the big bucks. Here are the top fi ve priciest listings currently on the market in the Hamptons.

ucked into the dunes by the ocean, this 10,000-squarefoot house has seven bedrooms and nine baths along with seven fireplaces. Harald Grant of Sotheby’s listed the home in June 2012 at $32 million, but quickly dropped the price to $26 million, when it became clear that the original price was “too high” for the market, he said. The home eventually sold in December for $22 million, a discount of more than 30 percent in six months. Property records identify the seller as a Carol Sandler with a Southampton address; Grant wouldn’t comment on the buyer.

$22 M

$21 .6M

466 GIN LANE, SOUTHAMPTON

his 12,500-square-foot spec house was built and styled by interior designer James Michael Howard. It was listed in 2011 with Corcoran at $19.75 million and sold for $18.5 million. Among its features: limestone floors, coffered ceilings, a pool, a tennis court and a name — Edgefield. The land traded for $5 million in 2010, according to public records, which suggests the May 2012 sale brought a windfall for Howard. Listing agent Gary DePersia of the Corcoran Group declined to name the buyer.

$18 .5M

$18 M

555 SAGAPONACK ROAD, SAGAPONACK

his concrete contemporary house, designed in 1970 by Ward Bennett, sits on a 2.5-acre lot with a gunite pool and tennis court. The sixbedroom, 4,000-square-foot house sat on the market for a little more than a year before closing for $17.6 million in May 2012. The original asking price was $24.5 million, 28 percent more than its eventual closing price. Corcoran’s Davis, who had the listing with Sotheby’s Grant, did not return a call for comment. The seller was a Judy Rosenberg of Alpine, N.J., according to public records. The buyer was listed as Sheshin LLC.

$17 .6M

$17 .5M

250 SAGAPONACK MAIN STREET, SAGAPONACK

$75 million: 20-30 West End Road, East Hampton Courtney Ross, widow of the late Time Warner honcho Steven Ross, listed this estate in late April with Ed Petrie of Sotheby’s International Realty. The main house has four bedrooms; there’s also a three-bedroom guest house on the property, which includes a barn and a heated pool. The 5.4-acre spread doesn’t have any oceanfront, but it does have access to coveted Georgica Pond.

$65 million: 351 Bridge Lane, Sagaponack On Sagg Pond, this property covers 33 acres, with 19 preserved as open space. The 11,700-square-foot home, built in 2000, has seven bedrooms, a wood-paneled library, a heated gunite pool and six fireplaces. The owner — Robert Hurst, the retired vice chairman of Goldman Sachs — put it on the market about a year ago. The listing is with Debbie Loeffler and Julie Briggs of the Corcoran Group.

$60 million: 939 Scuttlehole Road, Bridgehampton This 60-acre spread might be far from the ocean — north of the “highway,” officially known as Route 27 — but it has a name: Three Ponds Farm. The property includes an eightbedroom home, designed by architect Allan Greenberg; a nine-hole golf course; a grass tennis court; formal gardens; and, of course, three ponds. It came on the market with Dana Trotter of Sotheby’s in 2008. The owner has not been publicly identified.

$55 million: 231, 491 and 849 Hayground Road, Bridgehampton

his 6,000-square-foot house sold for $21.6 million just 10 months after being listed with Douglas Elliman’s Raymond Smith for $26.5 million. Neil Smith of Promontory Growth and Innovation, a Manhattan consulting firm, was in contract to buy it from owners Michael and Mary Naughton when Sandy wiped out the dune in front of the house, though the home itself wasn’t damaged. Smith didn’t back out of the deal but did ask that the sand and grasses be replaced, the broker said. The Naughtons completed a $160,000 landscaping project to close the deal.

00 November 2006 www.TheRealDeal.com

his three-bedroom house on Sagg Pond first hit the market in 2011 for $22.9 million. Louise Linden, a local developer and Saunders agent, was the seller and agent on the deal, which closed in November at $18 million. Linden said she paid “under $1 million” for the home in 1977. The 55-year-old house was designed by well-known Hamptons architect Peter Blake, she said, but will likely be torn down, especially since the zoning allows a home of five times the size to be built there. Linden would not comment on the buyer, but said the price chop was a symptom of the market. “You are not seeing bidding wars in this economic environment,” she said.

his six-bedroom, 5,800-squarefoot house, with a tennis court and pool, changed hands for $17.5 million in December, according to records filed with Suffolk County. It does not appear to ever have been publicly listed.

These three contiguous parcels make up Two Trees Farm, dairy land that developer David Walentas has turned into a horse showplace. Approved to be subdivided into 19 lots, the property has two residences, each with four bedrooms. The property came on the market in 2008 with a $95 million price tag. The listing is shared by Harald Grant of Sotheby’s and Judi Desiderio of Town & Country Real Estate.

$44.9 million: 249 Further Lane, East Hampton, This 17,000-square-foot, 10-bedroom home has a sunken tennis court, basketball court and heated gunite pool. John Healey of Town & Country is the listing agent for the property, which its unidentified owner put up for sale 15 months ago. — C. J. H.

www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 63

TRD’s 10th anniversary fête A photo gallery of the industry players who turned out for the packed red-carpet affair

ome 420 guests gathered at TOY Restaurant in the Gansevoort Meatpacking NYC Hotel to help The Real Deal celebrate its 10th anniversary. The two-level space was packed with New York City real estate industry

heavyweights, including members of the Trump clan, developers Kent Swig and Sharif El-Gamal, and plenty of top brokers. Check out the pictures snapped by TRD photographer Richard Lewin.

From left: Costas Kondylis, Joe McMillan, Donald Trump, Jr., Diane Ramirez, Leonard Steinberg, Justin Elghanayan, Jonathan Miller, John Gomes, Camilla Papale and Fredrik Eklund.

TRD’s Amir Korangy (left) and Simon Ziff

Michele Kleier (left) and Sabrina Kleier Morgenstern

David Zar

Platinum Properties executives

Barbara Fox and

Paul Massey

Jay Neveloff with wife Arlene

Party guests

Anthony Lolli (left) and guest

Andrew Gerringer

Cynthia and Bob Knakal

Eric Benaim (right) wit

Alexandre Vial (left) and Eric Anton

h guest

olo

Joseph Aquino and Faith Hope Cons

Christina Smyth and David Schechtman

Marie Claire and Robert

From left: TRD’s Jennie Durkovic and Ross Fox with Jessica Levy

Gladstone

TRD’s Kathy Clarke and Tal Alexander

Bruno Ricciotti and guests

TRD’s Zachary Kussin (left) and Lawrence Rich

Party guests

From left: Amir Korang y, Justin Elghanayan and Noah Freedman

From left: Neil Binder, Kent Swig, Sharif El-Gamal, Adelaide Polsinelli, Ilan Bracha and guest, Jennifer Gould Keil, Edward Mermelstein and Brinkley Skye.

64 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

064 TRD 10 year party page se FINAL.indd 1

PHOTOS FOR THE REAL DEAL BY RICHARD LEWIN

5/30/13 5:02 PM

Private Mortgage Banking

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ARCHITECTURE REVIEW

JA M E S G A R D N E R

Razing a spiritless box

Demolition of old 425 Park means one less ugly glass building in Midtown

he significance of what will soon occur at 425 Park Avenue is twofold: what is going up, and what is coming down. So far, attention has focused exclusively upon the former, a 41-story, 650,000-square-foot office tower designed by Norman Foster and his London firm, Foster & Partners. Foster’s design was selected with considerable fanfare in October. The building’s developers, Lehman Brothers Holdings and L&L Holding Co., invited 11 internationally acclaimed firms to submit designs. Four were chosen as finalists: Foster, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Richard Rogers. Usually, when a competition of this sort is held, the land over which the building is set to rise is vacant, or perhaps a sequence of crumbling buildings and row houses. It might surprise some people, then, that the future 425 Park Avenue will rise up over a plot of land currently occupied by a fully functioning building that also goes by the name of 425 Park Avenue. Construction on the new building will not begin for another two years, so the weary and dispirited example of the International Style that currently occupies the site will stand until the last of the tenants have been eased out. The razing of the building will represent something of a milestone in the history of New York City. A great many beautiful buildings from the early 20th century were destroyed to build the mostly soulless glass boxes that align Park Avenue from 57th street south to the Helmsley Building. For a half-century or more, those exemplars of the International Style have remained. But now, finally, one of them is coming down, and that can only be a good thing. The incumbent 425 Park Avenue exemplifies all that was wrong with the International Style, after such earlier and nearby masterpieces as the Seagram Building and Lever House. The 425 Park Avenue tower was completed in 1957 to designs by the once-famous firm of Kahn & Jacobs, whose founder, Ely Jacques Kahn, was responsible for more than 30 New York projects in his long career. Among Kahn’s more memorable designs are the Squibb Building at 745 Fifth Avenue and the Municipal Asphalt Plant at 655 East 90th Street. But if Kahn can lay claim to any posthumous fame these days (beyond the circle of architectural historians), it is as the inspiration for Guy Francon, the architect who sells out in Ayn Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead.” As Rand herself realized, however, that characterization was unfair to Kahn, because he was capable of distinguished

66 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

designs and because, as 425 Park Avenue attests, he ended his career as a modernist. (Francon, by contrast, was a die-hard reactionary.) But Kahn’s modernist structures, especially 425 Park Avenue, were a key step in the International Style’s descent from a revolutionary reimagining of space and form to the pallid and gutless conformity that blights much of Midtown. Kahn’s 425 Park Avenue rises up in setbacks in a way that recalls the Squibb Building, but with rather less of a dash. Its curtain wall is qualified by white ribs in its vertical ascent and by darkened spandrels along its horizontal access. It is possible that, back in 1957, there was a measure of freshness to this treatment, but that has long since vanished. Age, which enhances most architecture, only vi-

A rendering of what’s destined for 425 Park Avenue, a 41-story office tower designed by Norman Foster (bottom inset). Top inset, the International Style building that now stands on the site.

tiates the relics of the International Style. By the same token, the new tower that is set to rise represents the first wave in a new kind of skyscraper that, from an aesthetic perspective more than a functional

one, may transform the way we build office towers in New York. It too will be clad in the curtain wall so dear to the Modernists. But it will have a bit more style and individualism. In this regard, the new building promises to perform a role for apartment buildings in Midtown similar to the one that has already been performed by several notable residential high-rises, such as Rafael Viñoly’s 432 Park Avenue. That is to say that, in its tentative way, Foster’s design brings the pizzazz of the starchi-

tect, as well as the starchitect’s idiosyncratic use of forms, to office towers. This development has been underway for the past decade in other parts of the world. One need look no further than Foster’s own “Gherkin Building” in London, so called because its parabolic walls approximate the look of a pickle. And a foreshadowing of it can be found in the diagonal ribs of his Hearst Tower at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue. The good news is that 425 Park Avenue represents a bolder artistic vision than the Hearst Tower. It is divided into three segments that progressively recede from the street. There is nothing especially daring about that in New York, except that the architect has contrived to mark the spaces between those segments with gardens in such a way that each of the upper segments no longer seems to sit on the one beneath it — the traditional practice in New York — but rather, thanks to something like trusses, to float above it. The top of the building is marked by three tall, thin fins (or flanges) that serve absolutely no function, but look quite stylish, especially on the eastern façade. The bulk of the building is more standard fare, consisting of a curtain wall whose glassy surface is articulated with horizontal bands throughout, over which vertical bands have been superimposed on the western façade. The result is a sense of balance, safety and tidiness, which has the slightly disappointing effect of assimilating the building to most of the other office towers built in Midtown since the 1970s. The three other finalists were far more daring in their designs. I would not have wished to see Hadid’s design, a standard, four-square tower that seemed to liquefy at its base, built in any city I intended to inhabit. Similarly, for all the boldness of its twisting structure, Rem Koolhaas’s attempt lacked the grace and style to serve as a suitable replacement to what is standing on the site today. The best, I am convinced, was that of Richard Rogers, who conceived a threepart, segmented sequence of rectilinear forms that in some respects resembled those of Foster’s project. But its brightly colored exoskeleton, which recalled projects of Rogers’ early years, such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, looked very promising indeed. It is pure and perhaps unwarranted speculation on my part, but I suspect that the fix was in for Foster all along. In true New York fashion, the developers wanted something unconventional, but ultimately, in a conventional way. TRD

PHOTOGRAPH OF 425 PARK FOR THE REAL DEAL BY DEREK ZAHEDI

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Q&A

“Prospect”-ing for sales With the Barclays Center now up and running, prices and activity are on the rise in Prospect Heights and the surrounding area

BY MELISSA DEHNCKE-MCGILL AND CANDACE TAYLOR rospect Heights is known for its brownstones, growing crop of hip restaurants and bars and proximity to the controversial Barclays Center arena, which opened in September. While there have been some complaints about rowdy Brooklyn Nets and Justin Beiber fans, the doomsday scenarios predicted by opponents of the stadium have not come to pass, at least when it comes to real estate. In fact, Prospect Heights’ popularity (and rising prices) is spilling over into nearby Crown Heights, so much so that the once-stark borders between the neighborhoods have blurred. Brokers and others now refer to the northwest corner of Crown Heights, between Washington Avenue and Nostrand Avenue, as “ProCro,” despite angry remarks about the nickname from residents and politicians, such as Congressman Hakeem Jeffries.

Hal Lehrman

principal broker, Brooklyn Properties How is residential sales volume in the Prospect Heights area right now, and how does that compare to a year ago, two years ago and during the boom? There is a shortage of listings everywhere. Right now, I am showing stuff in Prospect Heights that a year ago couldn’t be sold, and it’s going very fast in bidding wars, at asking [price] or even above. This is across the board; Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, no difference. New developments that weren’t selling before are selling now. So this is a really unusual phenomenon right now, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen it: All the companies are running out of listings, and we are not running out of buyers. The pressure is on for expansion again, big time, into areas that were sleepy before. How is overall residential sales volume in ProCro specifically? It’s very, very strong, the pressure from the border. The feeling that you are leaving Park Slope has diminished enormously. What are some other new trends? The higher end of the market is even stronger than the middle and lower end. In the more expensive neighborhoods, prices are soaring at the upper level. For brownstones everywhere — Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene — the prices are dramatically higher than they have ever been. A brownstone at over $3 million in Park Slope is now normal. The Richard Meier–designed new condo 1 Grand Army Plaza finally sold out after 68 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

several years. How did that project affect the market? They set a standard, a new mark at the time, for the price of things being sold. A lot of very wealthy people bought in that building. That had a very positive impact on the whole area. How has the Barclays Center affected residential prices and sales in Prospect Heights and ProCro? It’s starting to have a very positive impact. We sold a house on Washington just south of Atlantic Avenue. It was a difficult sale a year and a half ago, but they [the new owners] fixed it up entirely and they are feeling very happy with their purchase. They could resell for a big profit, although that’s not what they intend to do. Where investors were feeling skittish about making a move, they are now feeling confident, and the restaurants all up and down near the Barclays Center are doing incredibly well. The traffic proved not to be anywhere near as traumatic as people expected. So it’s really quite a change. The Barclays Center is very popular and is driving prices up. How long are properties staying on the market in Prospect Heights and ProCro, and how does that compare to a year ago and during the boom? One or two weeks, maybe a month. There are bidding wars on most properties. There’s a property in Prospect Heights, 870 Pacific Street. We put it on the market three weeks ago and we had around 150 people show up. And there is a bidding war. When did bidding wars start happening again? I’d say maybe two months ago it started and has been crescendoing up. In each bidding war there is one winner and many losers, so they start to accumulate, and when they come back they are ready to win, so it gets more intense.

In this month’s Q&A, The Real Deal talked to local brokers and industry experts to find out what’s happening in Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and ProCro. The area continues to see rapid change, as manufacturing, auto repair and storage facilities are replaced by hotspots such as Bar Corvo, an Italian bistro on Washington Avenue; the Mexican eatery Chavela’s on Franklin Avenue; and Lincoln Station, which opened in January in Crown Heights. And while construction slowed during the downturn, residential projects are finally returning to the area, including a 14-unit rental building at 818 Dean Street and a 65-unit building under construction at 341 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. For more on the ProCro debate, the impact of the Barclays Center and the area’s retail hotspots, we turn to our panel of experts.

Jonathan Miller

CEO, Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers How is overall residential sales volume in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights right now, and how does that compare to a year ago and during the boom? So far this year (through mid-April), there have been 53 sales in Prospect Heights. That’s up 23.3 percent from 43 in the same period of last year, up 12.8 percent from 47 two years ago, and down 19.7 percent from 66 in 2007, at the height of the boom. In Crown Heights, there have been 95 sales so far this year, up 51 percent from 63 in the same period of last year, but down slightly from 99 in 2007. How has the controversy over the ProCro name and the disputed neighborhood boundaries affected the market? The acronym naming convention seems to have accelerated over the past several decades. The topic has brought additional awareness to the area, probably for a net benefit to the market. I think what’s happening is with the market tightening and a natural expansion from Prospect Heights, that is creating a new submarket. Brooklyn is seeing this across many neighborhoods, as people are searching for affordability. I expect many more acronyms to be created over the next several years. What’s going on with residential sales prices in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights? Over the past year, prices and sales have seen larger gains in Crown Heights than in Prospect Heights, but the average prices in Prospect Heights are still nearly double. Crown Heights has benefited from the spillover from Pros-

pect Heights. In Prospect Heights, the average sales price this year to date is $719,031, up 1.6 percent from $707,647 a year ago. It’s 16 percent higher than $619,914 in 2007. In Crown Heights, the average price for sales so far this year is $453,798, up 18.4 percent from $383,388 last year, but down 15.7 percent from $538,130 in 2007. How has the Barclays Center affected residential prices and sales in Prospect Heights and ProCro? I think we are already seeing an uptick in activity. I don’t know if the price trends are directly related, but I think it is a pattern we are going to see over the next decade. One of the reasons why the city encourages this kind of development is to revive growth in the surrounding area. I think once they put that trend in motion, we would expect more activity and therefore upward pressure on prices.

Judith Siegel Lief

senior vice president, Warren Lewis Realty How are overall residential sales prices in the Prospect Heights area right now, and how does that compare to a year ago and during the boom? Prospect Heights has gotten steadily pricier; in some cases, competitive with Park Slope. As the quality of schools improves, the distinction will become even less. Crown Heights is starting to improve as sales [in other areas] become saturated. Which price ranges and housing types in the area are struggling the most now? Like any other neighborhood: small apartments and those over train lines. www.TheRealDeal.com January 2013 77

Q&A How long are properties staying on the market in Prospect Heights and ProCro, and how does that compare to a year ago and during the boom? They go fast — in a couple of weeks — if they are well priced.

Wendy Stephenson vice president, Brown Harris Stevens How is inventory in Prospect Heights right now, and how does that compare to a year ago and during the boom? I wish there was more inventory in Prospect Heights, because the demand outweighs supply, and that is one of the biggest differences between 2013 and prior years. In 2011 and 2012, there was a burst of inventory in buildings like 580 Crown, 1509 Bergen and 1311 Pacific, for example; and I haven’t seen that in 2013. What do you consider to be the borders of Prospect Heights vs. Crown Heights, and how has that changed in recent years? I’ve usually considered the borders of Prospect Heights to be Plaza Street, Flatbush Avenue, Atlantic Avenue and Washington Avenue, and Crown Heights to be Washington Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Utica Avenue and Rutland Road, but I know that boundaries are blurred. What is the impact of new stores and restaurants in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights? Which new stores and restaurants are the most popular and have caused the most change in the neighborhood? From what I’ve seen, the march of great restaurants and shops started on Vanderbilt Avenue and has been rapidly moving east over the past year or two. The list is so long. I personally love Ample Hills, 606 R&D, Chuko, Bar Corvo, Kimchi Taco, Mayfield, Chavela’s, Blue Marble, Joyce and the Vanderbilt. The Richard Meier–designed new condo 1 Grand Army Plaza finally sold out after several years. How did that project affect the market? I think that it may have put Prospect Heights on the radar for some buyers who hadn’t considered that neighborhood before. How long are properties staying on the market in Prospect Heights, and how does that compare to a year ago and during the boom? In many cases, there are multiple offers after the first open house. In my experience, that is a change from past years.

Brendan Aguayo

senior vice president, Halstead Property How has the controversy over the ProCro name and the disputed neighborhood boundaries affected the market and your business? I, for one, will never use the moniker ProCro. What’s going on with rentals in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights? Much like the sales market, the rental market in the neighborhood is extremely strong. As people were priced out of places like Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, they started to pour into adjacent neighborhoods with a similar housing stock, aesthetic and access to public transportation. Additionally, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights have had a larger amount of new-development inventory that appeals to renters. We just started the lease-up of a new construction 14-unit building located at 818 Dean Street and have experienced an incredible amount of traffic. Within two weeks, we have seen applications or signed leases on 65 percent of the building and expect to be finished by the end of the month. At this point, the rental market is really able to quickly absorb any quality product that becomes available. The main difference that we’re seeing compared to a year or two ago is that development sites that were intended to go condo are indeed hitting the market as condos, whereas a couple of years ago, there were a number of developers that decided they would be better served switching to the rental option. What’s going on with residential sales prices in Prospect Heights? Over the past six months, we’ve seen both per-square-foot prices and price ceilings in the Prospect Heights area increase substantially — particularly with regards to new development product. At 96 St. Marks Avenue, we achieved an average of about $980 per square foot. At 268 St. Marks Avenue, we had accepted offers on every unit in the project within one week of the first open house. What new trends are you seeing? We’ve seen a bit of a demographic shift in the Prospect Heights market recently. Whereas a few years ago developers largely built for young singles, now there is an incredible demand for large apartments that can accommodate families. For example, at 268 St. Marks all of our units were targeted to families. At another project that we will launch in a few months, at 650 Bergen Street, we’re also only doing large units. For the most part, condo developers in the area are choosing

not to even include any one-beds or studios in their unit mix. However, in many of the projects we are doing in the Crown Heights area, our unit mix consists mostly of one-bedrooms, tight two-bedrooms and some studios. What is the impact of new stores and restaurants in Prospect Heights and ProCro on the residential market? Vanderbilt was the first retail corridor in Prospect Heights that really helped attract attention from prospective renters and purchasers. Early additions like Soda Bar, Cornelius and Plan B helped establish it as a destination within Brooklyn. The same thing has happened on Franklin Avenue where places like Bar Corvo, Chavela’s, Franklin Park and Breukelen Coffee are attracting both families and the hipster set. I would say that Franklin Park really set the bar — no pun intended — for the area and was one of the early catalysts to jumpstart the retail value for the area. How has the Barclays Center affected residential prices and sales in Prospect Heights and ProCro? The Barclays Center has had less of an impact on the neighborhood than some feared. But that’s not to say that there haven’t been speed bumps, or that there aren’t those who have been permanently affected in a negative way. A lot of the momand-pop-type retail around the arena on Flatbush and Atlantic has already experienced intense upward pressure on rents, as national brands have gained interest in the foot traffic and visibility created by the crowds. Many of them won’t be able to hang on, and for those that have already left, they probably won’t be coming back to the area. With regards to residential real estate, the completion of the project helped to quell any fears of potential purchasers that previously expressed concerns over the unknown. For example, in 2011 and 2012 at a condo project we represented on Dean Street adjacent to the arena, we regularly fielded concerns from prospective buyers about construction noise and dust, future issues with crowds and noise on the street, and the eventual design of the arena. However, when we brought the last unit to market this year, there wasn’t the same concern because purchasers could get a feel for what the impact really was, and they were generally comfortable with it.

Erik Serras

principal broker, Ideal Properties Group How has the controversy over the ProCro name and the disputed neighborhood boundaries affected the market and your business?

As a true ProCro-er, I do welcome the re-invigorated businesses, and the pseudonyms that bring them. What’s going on with rentals in the Prospect Heights area? This season, units in Prospect Heights are renting for more than a year ago. Units in Prospect Heights are staying on the market for a half-day, one day, two days, three days, maximum. Units in Crown Heights linger on the market for an additional day or so, but the competition is stiff either way. The market is absorbing anything with utmost haste, even with prices being — on average — $200 to $350 per month higher than they were in 2012. What’s going on with residential sales prices in Prospect Heights? Are prices up or down compared to a year ago and during the boom? Ideal Properties has in contract a townhouse in Prospect Heights for $3.15 million. Only a year ago, [that] number would have been unimaginable.

Barbara Brown Allen

agent, Douglas Elliman How is overall residential sales volume in the Prospect Heights/ Crown Heights area right now, and how does that compare to a year ago, two years ago and during the boom? I do a lot of work in Crown Heights, [where] prices are going right up because there is less inventory. What do you consider to be the borders of Prospect Heights vs. Crown Heights, and how has that changed in recent years? There is a debate about where the border is. Most people feel the border between Prospect Heights and Crown Heights is Washington Avenue. Crown Heights proper to me would be as far as Brooklyn Avenue. Kingston Avenue, which is a little farther east, is also becoming a nice commercial corridor. How has the controversy over the ProCro name and the disputed neighborhood boundaries affected the market and your business? I would like to clear this for the record: There is no ProCro. I have been a resident of Crown Heights for 12 years and the people of Crown Heights are proud of their community, and 95 percent of the people do not want the name to be changed. Whoever is making that name — it’s not going to fly. We hate ProCro; we are beautiful Crown Heights. TRD www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 69

TRI-STATE BRIEFS CONNECTICUT

Hartford’s landmark Colt Complex to see more redevelopment The Capitol Region Education Council is expanding into another building in the historic landmark Colt Gateway complex in Hartford. CREC, Colt’s largest tenant with space leased in five of the complex’s 10 building, is redeveloping an office building at the corner of Sequassen Street and Van Dyke Avenue to accom-

Hartford’s Colt Complex

modate the secondary grades for the Two Rivers Middle Magnet School, the Hartford Courant reported. The project, estimat-

ed at $5 million to $6 million, is expected to house 750 students. CREC is paying for the renovation with state funding and will lease the space from Colt Gateway. When the redevelopment is complete this fall, CREC will occupy about 200,000 square feet in six buildings, or nearly a third of the 630,000-squarefoot complex. Colt Gateway’s management still plans to sign up a variety of commercial tenants for the rest of the available space.

NEW JERSEY

Princeton starts on biggest new project in its history

Princeton University has started work on a $330 million arts and transit project after demolishing a stretch of houses and commercial spaces along Alexander Street, the Times of Trenton reported. The development, Princeton’s biggest in its 267-year history, includes three new arts buildings, road changes and a new transit plaza and garage. The project covers an area along University Place and Alexander Street just south of the McCarter Theatre and east of Forbes College. The university

had offered the eight homes that it razed — for free — to anyone willing to pay the relocation costs. Princeton received more than 1,000 inquiries, but the difficulty and expense of moving the houses

Demolishing homes in New Jersey

proved too much. Residents generally support the addition of the arts campus, but are suing to keep the university from moving a train station 460 feet south from the town center. Despite the lawsuit, Princeton expects to complete the project by 2017.

LONG ISLAND

Four developers submit plans for Nassau Coliseum Four developers have submitted proposals to turn the 40-yearold Nassau Coliseum into a top sports-and-concert arena capable of generating millions of dollars in revenue for Nassau County, Newsday reported. Bruce Ratner, who built Brooklyn’s Barclays Center; Madison Square Garden Company; Edward Blumenfeld of Syosset, whose Manhattan projects include Gotham Plaza

Nassau Coliseum

and East Side Plaza; and Bayville-based New York Sports LLC presented their plans last month to the Nassau Business Advisory Council, which consists of 17 local business leaders who will advise County Executive Edward Mangano in selecting a developer. The proposals — ranging in cost from $60 million to $250 million — include entertainment venues, convention center space, restaurants, sports bars, retail shops, a bowling alley and an outdoor amphitheater. The developers told the panel that they each would rely on private funds for their projects. The winning bidder must give the county a percentage of the gross revenue from arena events. The transformed coliseum is projected to generate $11 billion in economic activity over 30 years. Mangano is expected to choose a developer by July 15. Compiled by Sanna Chu

70 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

Commercial and residential real estate news briefs from around the U.S.

NATIONAL MARKET REPORT

Minneapolis

Curt Schilling

BOSTON Red Sox pitching leg-

end Curt Schilling has shaved another $300,000 off the price of his 26-acre estate just outside of Boston, Realtor.com reported. The seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom home in Medfield, Mass., is now listed at $3.2 million — down from $3.5 million. The mansion went on the market five years ago for $8 million. Schilling, who retired from baseball in 2009, is being sued by the state of Rhode Island for allegedly misleading the state in obtaining a $75 million loan for the video game company that he started. The business, called 38 Studios, went bankrupt.

Minneapolis Minnesota’s tallest office building, the 792-foot IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis, has a trio of new owners — Beacon Investment Properties, Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services and Menora Mivtachim Insurance, Commercial Property Executive reported. The companies paid $253 million to Inland American Real Estate Trust, which bought the property in 2006 for $277.9 million. The Philip Johnson–designed tower has 1.4 million square feet, of which 93 percent is leased. The center’s Crystal Court retail plaza has no vacancies. Inland hired HFF, a commercial real estate and capital markets services firm, to find a buyer. HFF also worked on behalf of the buyers to set up a 10-year, $182 million financing package with JP Morgan Chase Bank.

Denver Luxury home sales in Denver are up by 45 percent from a year ago, according to a report by Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage cited by the Denver Post. In March, Denver had 71 home sales priced above $1 million, compared with the March 2012 total of 49. The month-to-month gain was even greater — 58 percent. February saw 45 houses sold for $1 million or more. Taking the top spot for most expensive sale in March, at $7 million, was a 13,000-square-foot home in the Denver suburb of Cherry Hills Village. Meanwhile, the median sale price of a luxury home fell slightly to $1.28 million last month, down 2.7 percent from the same period of 2012 and 1.5 percent from the previous month. Sellers received an average of 96.1 percent of their asking prices, up from 94.9 percent in 2012. “The Denver metro area’s luxury market has continued its upward momentum with the spring home buying season in full swing,” 72 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

said Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Colorado. “We’re gradually getting more inventory on the market, but it’s still not enough to meet strong buyer demand.”

Providence Gaia Real Estate has acquired the 478-apartment Winchester Park & Winchester Wood complex in Providence, R.I., from Equity Residential of Chicago, the Providence Journal reported. New York–based Gaia paid some $55 million, or about $115,000 per apartment, and secured 20 acres of adjacent land in the April deal. CBRE/New England represented the seller and found the buyer. Gaia plans to update the apartments and common areas. Winchester Park, built in the 1970s, has 416 apartments in 63 buildings; the 1985-constructed Winchester Wood has 62 apartments in 16 buildings. The properties share a clubhouse, a fitness center, an outdoor swimming pool and tennis courts.

Phoenix The Phoenix housing market posted the nation’s biggest annual increase in home prices, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. The 23 percent gain, in the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, puts Phoenix at the top of the 20 largest metropolitan areas. All the cities showed improvement, climbing an average of 9.3 percent in February. The increase, the largest in seven years, represented the second month in a row that every city saw higher prices, which — as David Blitzer of S&P Dow Jones Indices pointed out — has not happened since early 2005. Compiled by Evan Bleier

Chris Tucker

LOS ANGELES Actor Chris Tucker,

of “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Rush Hour” fame, made a profit of $1 million when he sold his Los Angeles-area home for $2.1 million, the Huffington Post reported. The sale of the five-bedroom, seven-bathroom home in Tarzana, which has a pool and a spa, took place in March. Tucker bought the 6,399-square-foot property in 1996.

Vince Vaughn with wife, Kyla

LOS ANGELES Actor Vince Vaughn

and wife Kyla have paid $3.93 million for a five-bedroom, six-bathroom house in the Los Angeles suburb of La Cañada Flintridge, Real Estalker reported. The 5,563-square-foot home, situated on three-quarters of an acre, boasts Brazilian cherry wood floors, formal living and dining rooms and a sports court. The couple, who are expecting their second child, can now count actress Angela Bassett as a neighbor.

HOME FINANCING FOR ALL TYPES OF HOMEBUYERS

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ON THE MARKET Westbrook puts $1B NYC portfolio up for sale Private equity firm Westbrook Partners is selling a six-building Manhattan portfolio that is expected to fetch about $1 billion, real estate sources told The Real Deal. Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies of Eastdil Secured are the exclusive sales brokers for the properties, the largest portfolio to hit the 90 Lexington Avenue Manhattan market this year, a review of listings shows. The office assets include 295 Madison Avenue and 444 Madison Avenue; the residential buildings are at 235 West 75th Street, 301 West 53rd Street, 90 Lexington Avenue, and 88 Lexington Avenue.

Commercial properties recently placed on the market

Street and a co-op at 349 West Broadway, hit the market last month with an asking price of $35 million, The Real Deal reported. The Greene Street building, between Prince and Houston streets, houses eyewear purveyor Warby Parker’s first brick-and-mortar store. The tenant is signed for 10 years at the 4,000-square-foot space, as is Proenza Schouler, an upscale women’s clothing and accessories line, said Eastern Consolidated’s David Schechtman, who is marketing the properties with Lipa Lieberman. The 1,200-square-foot Broadway space is unoccupied.

UWS multi-family townhouses for sale

A site at 259-267 West 45th Street, jointly owned by Boston Properties and Related Companies, is for sale and could trade for $50 million, or about $400 per buildable square foot, the New York Post reported. The parcel, just east of Eighth Avenue, can support a development of about 132,000 square feet and up to 16 stories, according to the newspaper. The joint venture acquired the property in 2006 for $15.25 million. A Newmark Grubb Knight Frank team led by Mark Weiss is marketing the site.

Three contiguous townhouses at 315, 317 and 319 West 88th Street are on the market with an asking price of $15.5 million. Between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, the Renaissance Revival properties were built in 1896 and have approximately 21,508 square feet of space combined. Of the 31 residential units, 17 are free market, 11 are rent stabilized, one is rent controlled and two are owner occupied. The apartments 315, 317 and 319 West 88th Street include six studios and 25 one-bedrooms. Paul Smadbeck and Hall Oster of Massey Knakal are handling the assignment.

Soho retail package on the market for $35M

Park Slope McDonald’s site up for grabs

Two Soho retail properties, a condominium at 121 Greene

A site at 275 Fourth Avenue on the corner of 1st Street,

Midtown West development site on the block

primed for a 60,000-square-foot residential development, hit the market for $12 million, TerraCRG, the commercial brokerage marketing the property, told The Real Deal. The property, the home of the neighborhood McDonald’s, is a 100-foot-by-100-foot corner lot, according to Ofer Cohen, president of TerraCRG, who is handling the marketing with colleagues Melissa DiBella, Dan Marks, Peter Matheos and Michael Hernandez. It is also available for lease at $600,000 a year.

Queens development site asking $11M

14-01, 14-07 and 14-19 Broadway

A site with 78,000 buildable square feet on the border of Long Island City and Astoria in Queens is for sale with an asking price of $11.25 million. The site consists of three contiguous lots at 14-01, 14-07 and 14-19 Broadway, with 182 feet of frontage on the north side of Broadway between 14th and 21st streets. An auto repair shop with a soonto-expire lease occupies the corner parcel; the other lots are vacant. Shimon Shkury, Howard Raber, Victor Sozio, Michael Tortorici and Randy Modell of Ariel Property Advisors are handling the sale. Compiled by Linden Lim

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13ERM0134_UpdateRealDealAd.indd 1

4/26/13 4:32 PM

Deal Sheet summary

The Deal Sheet, on pages 78 to 88, covers transactions from 4/11/13 through 5/10/13. Please submit future deals to deals@therealdeal.com.

Sales

Overview

By type

Property sales Deals Dollars

45 $523,640,000

Financing Buildings Aggregate value

Development

Hotel

Industrial

1.9

Mixed-Use

Mixed-Use Multi-family

Transactions

By dollar volume (in millions) 116.38

36.3

Multi-family

237.38

Office

13.28

Retail

33.4

$249,250,000

Leases Office

Retail

Total

Leases square feet Office

776,443

Retail

175,405

Total

951,848

Office leases Office leases by industry Industry

Office leases sf by industry Leases

Industry

Top tenant reps for office leasing by sf

Square feet leased

Tenant representative

Square feet leased

Advertising & Marketing

Architecture & Design

8,896

CBRE Group

99,116

Communications

7,500

Olmstead Properties

57,691

Consulting

3,670

Siderow Organization

49,541

E-Commerce

22,226

Colliers International

44,010

Education

14,496

Cushman & Wakefield

40,234

Fashion*

17,390

Studley

25,779

Financial

191,432

Ellman Realty Advisors

24,562

Adams & Co.

23,350

Cassidy Turley

22,226

165,372

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

153,022

Legal

18,223

Media

105,229

Medical

25,779

Capstone Realty Advisors

17,972

NGO

58,518

DTZ

14,106

Other

25,958

Brickman & Associates

11,289

Research

10,234

Jones Lang LaSalle

Retail

55,000

NY Citi Group Realty

5,960

Science & Technology

46,520

JSN Properties

5,600

8,828

Retail leases Top tenant reps for leasing by sf

Retail leases by industry

Broker

Discount

17,425 46,159

Square feet leased

Retail leases sf by industry

Ripco Real Estate

26,525

Drugstore

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

25,584

Fashion

4,400

J.W. Burke & Company

15,268

Food & Beverage

19,501

Prudential Douglas Elliman

6,750

Health & Beauty

49,218

Winick Realty

4,691

Other

38,702

New Street Realty

3,162

Misrahi Realty

3,000

Lee & Associates

2,800

Manhattan Commercial Realty

2,700

AG Consulting

2,150

Cushman & Wakefield

1,837

Real Estate Investors Group

1,800

RKF

1,500

(*includes showroom space)

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Deal Sheet

Commercial deals in New York City Deals are listed from largest to smallest in square feet leased or bought. The Deal Sheet covers transactions from 4/11/13 to 5/10/13. Please submit future deals to deals@therealdeal.com.

Office leases Address

Size

Tenant / Representative

Landlord / Representative

Notes

111 Eighth Ave

134,830

Deutsch / R. Silver, H. Kobrin, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

Google / CBRE

The advertising agency signed a lease renewal, the New York Post reported.

200 Fifth Ave

57,691

BuzzFeed / Steven Marvin, Olmstead Properties

Tiffany & Co. / Greg Taubin, Studley

The social media and news website signed a two-year sublease on the eighth floor, the New York Post reported. The tenant is relocating from a smaller, 24,000-square-foot space at 54 West 21st Street.

40 Wall St

55,000

Duane Reade / n/a

Trump Organization / J. Lichtenberg, J. Horowitz, C&W

The drugstore operator signed an office lease for its headquarters, the New York Observer reported.

280 Park Ave

49,541

Blue Mountain Capital / Brad Siderow, Siderow Organization

SL Green; Vornado / M. Ann Tighe, P. Turchin, CBRE

The private investment company signed a lease to relocate from a smaller, 22,250-square-foot space on the fifth floor, GlobeSt.com reported.

280 Park Ave

49,541

Promontory Financial Group LLC / n/a

SL Green; Vornado / M. Ann Tighe, P. Turchin, CBRE

The strategy, risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm signed a lease to relocate from a smaller, 19,495-square-foot space on the 40th floor, GlobeSt.com reported.

257 Park Ave South

44,010

Environmental Defense Fund / Alan Desino, Colliers International

Feil Organization / B. Feil, R. Fisher, Feil Organization

The nonprofit signed a long-term lease renewal. The company has been a tenant at the building since 1996.

350 Fifth Ave (Empire State Building)

43,000

LinkedIn / Sacha Zarba, CBRE

W&H Properties / W. Cohen, R. Kass, J. Santiago, S. Ursini, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

The professional-networking website signed an expansion lease.

40 Wall St

36,490

First Investors Management Company / n/a

Trump Organization / J. Lichtenberg, J. Horowitz, C&W

The financial services firm signed a lease, the New York Observer reported. The tenant is relocating from 110 Wall Street. The asking rent was $35 per square foot, according to the publication.

635 Madison Ave

25,779

Reproductive Medicine Associates / D. Horowitz, J. Peck, Studley

Ashkenazy Acquisition / Represented in-house

The infertility practice signed a lease renewal, the New York Post reported.

257 Park Ave South

24,562

Madison Logic Inc. / Marco Ellman, Ellman Realty Advisors

Feil Organization / B. Feil, R. Fisher, Feil Organization

The tech company signed a lease.

292 Madison Ave

22,226

Borderfree.com / D. Hoffman Jr., B. Boisi, Cassidy Turley

292 Madison Avenue Leasehold LLC / W. Cohen, R. Kass, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

The global e-commerce firm expanded and relocated to the building’s fourth and fifth floors.

One Bryant Park

20,227

QFR / Jared Horowitz, C&W

Durst Organization / Represented inhouse

The hedge fund signed an expansion lease on the 37th floor, the New York Post reported. The tenant is adding to the 13,000 square feet it currently occupies on the same floor. The building is now 99.9 percent leased.

126 East 56th St

18,223

Lanier Law Firm / S. Petriello, B. Friedland, S. Seiler, CBRE

Pearlmark Real Estate Partners / H. Blair, S. Kearns, C&W

The Houston-based law firm signed a lease renewal on the sixth and seventh floors and expanded onto the eighth floor.

733 Third Ave

14,508

Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America / M. Liss, R. Zimbalist, CBRE

Durst Organization / Represented inhouse

The nonprofit signed a lease for part of the fifth floor, the New York Post reported. The asking rent was $48 per square foot, according to the paper. The tenant is relocating from 386 Park Avenue South, where asking rents are in the range of $50 to $60 per square foot.

One Penn Plaza

14,106

Presidio Networked Solutions / J. Pavone, N. Bates, DTZ

Vornado / Represented in-house

The IT services provider signed a long-term lease on the 28th floor.

386 Park Ave South

13,121

Profero / S. King, G. Miovski, CBRE

William Macklowe Co.; Principal Real Estate Investors / P. Amrich, N. King, R. Zimbalist, K. Powers, CBRE

The digital advertising and marketing firm signed a lease for the entire 13th floor, the New York Post reported. The tenant is relocating from 28 West 25th Street.

386 Park Ave South

13,121

MoPub / Tim Gibson, C&W

William Macklowe Co.; Principal Real Estate Investors / P. Amrich, N. King, R. Zimbalist, K. Powers, CBRE

The mobile advertising company signed a lease on the 12th floor, the New York Post reported.

650 Fifth Ave

11,289

Metropolitan Real Estate / Paul Kotcher, Brickman & Associates

650 Fifth Avenue Company / R. Stillman, P. Haskin, Z. Freeman, CBRE

The investment advisory firm signed an 11-year lease for the entire 29th floor. The tenant is relocating from 135 East 57th Street.

500 Fifth Ave

10,346

The University of Oxford / P. Ippolito, M. Morris, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

500 Fifth Avenue Inc. / H. Blair, S. Kearns, C&W

The university signed a lease renewal on the entire 32nd floor.

One Bryant Park

8,828

Manikay Partners LLC / A. Chudnoff, D. Turkewitz, Jones Lang LaSalle

Marathon Asset Management / A. Chudnoff, L. Kiell, D. Turkewitz, Jones Lang LaSalle

The hedge fund manager signed a six-year sublease on the 39th floor.

462-468 Seventh Ave

8,372

Focus Plus / J. McLaughlin, T. Murtha, Capstone Realty

n/a / Barbara Raskob, Kaufman Organization

The research facility operator signed a lease for the entire 12th floor.

64 West 48th St

7,852

Document Technologies LLC / n/a

Muss Development / B. Given, L. Prisco, E. Lasoff, Colliers International

The document and technology solutions provider signed an expansion lease on the ninth floor, bringing its total occupancy to 17,000 square feet.

570 Lexington Ave

7,846

Air India / Robert Eisenberg, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

Feil Organization / Represented inhouse

The airline company signed a lease to relocate to the building’s 14th floor from the 15th floor, Crain’s reported. The asking rent was in the $50s per square foot, according to the publication.

48 Wall St

5,930

Carl Fischer Music / T. Murtha, G. Freydson, Capstone Realty

n/a / Jonathan Dean, Swig Equities

The music publishing company signed a lease for the entire 28th floor.

One Bryant Park

5,764

Ascot Underwriting Inc. / M. Rizzo, Z. Price, CBRE

Durst Organization / Represented inhouse

The insurance underwriting services firm signed a lease on the 40th floor, the New York Post reported.

6 East 39th St

5,600

Insignia National Title Agency / Jeff Nissani, JSN Properties

6 East 39th St. Holdings LLC / Elissa Patterson, EJMB Commercial

The title agency signed a lease on the seventh floor. The company relocated from a smaller, 1,786-square-foot space at 207 West 25th Street.

121 East 24th St

5,186

And Partners / James Buslik, Jeff Buslik, Adams & Co.

Kofler Associates / James Buslik, Jeff Buslik, Adams & Co.

The strategic design firm signed a 10-year lease renewal. The reported asking rent was $45 per square foot.

500 Fifth Ave

4,538

Argus Media Inc. / P. Berti, H. McCarthy, C&W

500 Fifth Avenue Inc. / H. Blair, S. Kearns, C&W

The media company signed an expansion lease.

125 Fifth Ave

4,500

SHIFT Communications / Arkady Smolyansky, CBRE

Prime Properties Inc. / M. Bergey, S. Siegel, CBRE

The communications agency signed a lease for the entire fourth floor. The company is relocating from the 14th floor of 915 Broadway.

78 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

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www.TheRealDeal.net December 200

5/29/13 12:42 PM

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Office leases continued Address

Size

Tenant / Representative

Landlord / Representative

Notes

118-35 Queens Blvd (Queens)

4,150

Central Medical Services of Westrock / Noel Caban, Winick Realty

Muss Development / Represented inhouse

The healthcare services provider signed a 10-year lease on the ninth floor.

10 West 33rd St

3,990

HMY Jewelry Inc. / Andrew Silvester, Murray Hill Properties

Ten West Thirty Third Associates / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The jewelry company signed a new, seven-year, eight-month office lease. The reported asking rent was $38 per square foot.

237 West 37th St

3,779

Creare LLC / Brett Maslin, Adams & Co.

MTS Real Estate Owner LLC / n/a

The apparel and accessories company signed a new, five-year lease. The reported asking rent was $35 per square foot.

50 Broadway

3,710

Li-Saltzman Architects PC / John Kourtis, NY Citi Group Realty

50 Broadway Realty Corp. / Stephen Bellwood, Cassidy Turley

The architectural firm signed an eight-year lease for the entire 33rd floor.

44 Wall St

3,000

Style House Public Relations / n/a

n/a / n/a

The public relations firm signed a lease. The tenant is relocating from a smaller, 1,200-square-foot space at 153 West 27th Street.

463 Seventh Ave

2,904

Caruana Group Ltd. / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The Arsenal Company LLC / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The outerwear company signed a lease renewal. The reported asking rent was $42 per square foot.

34 West 33rd St

2,799

Bentex Group / D. Levy, B. Maslin, Adams & Co.

Arcade Building Associates / D. Levy, B. Maslin, Adams & Co.

The children’s wear company signed a lease. The reported asking rent was $44 per square foot.

121 West 27th St

2,500

Only Make Believe / Elliot Zellinger, Savitt Partners

n/a / Vijay Mehra, Professional Consortium

The interactive theater company signed a five-year office lease, the New York Post reported. The asking rent was $37 per square foot, according to the publication. The tenant is relocating from 1133 Broadway.

250 West 57th St

2,348

Delta Dental / Andrew Ross, C&W

W&H Properties / H. Blair, S. Kearns, K. Mekles, C&W

The insurance company signed a new lease.

160 Broadway

2,250

Total Relief Marketing Solutions / Seva Soloviov, NY Citi Group Realty

Daror Associates LLC / Mendy Braun, Braun Management

The marketing company signed a five-year lease.

19 West 8th St

2,100

Analogue / Transwestern Real Estate

n/a / M. Kapnick, C. Bryerman, SRS Real Estate Partners

The tenant signed a 10-year office lease.

500 Fifth Ave

2,050

New Vision Communications Corp. / n/a

500 Fifth Avenue Inc. / H. Blair, S. Kearns, C&W

The marketing communications company signed a new lease.

11 Broadway

1,970

UrbanTech Consulting Engineering PC / Tom Murtha, Capstone Realty Advisors

n/a / Braun Management

The engineering consulting firm signed a lease for part of the fourth floor.

250 West 57th St

1,862

Weinman, Schnee Morais Inc. / Jonathan Anapol, Prime Manhattan Realty

W&H Properties / H. Blair, S. Kearns, K. Mekles, C&W

The market research firm signed a new lease.

463 Seventh Ave

1,799

Score Inc. / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The Arsenal Company LLC / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The apparel company signed a lease renewal. The reported asking rent was $40 per square foot.

336-342 West 37th St

1,700

Coridea / Jarad Winter, Capstone Realty Advisors

n/a / Philippe Ifrah, IGS Realty

The consulting firm signed a lease for part of the 14th floor.

34 West 33rd St

1,680

NY Kids Showroom / David Levy, Adams & Co.

Arcade Building Associates / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The children’s wear company signed a five-year lease renewal. The reported asking rent was $42 per square foot.

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Office leases continued Address

Size

Tenant / Representative

Landlord / Representative

Notes

34 West 33rd St

1,640

Sammy B Boys Only Ltd. / David Levy, Adams & Co.

Arcade Building Associates / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The children’s wear company signed a new, five-year lease. The reported asking rent was $42 per square foot.

500 Fifth Ave

1,441

China XD Plastics Company Limited / n/a

500 Fifth Avenue Inc. / H. Blair, S. Kearns, C&W

The developer and manufacturer of plastic products signed a new lease.

463 Seventh Ave

1,284

Diana Imports Inc. / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The Arsenal Company LLC / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The apparel importer signed a new lease. The reported asking rent was $40 per square foot.

463 Seventh Ave

1,269

Antares Continental Corporation / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The Arsenal Company LLC / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The importing company signed a lease renewal. The reported asking rent was $42 per square foot.

500 Fifth Ave

1,224

Forward Insight Commodities / n/a

500 Fifth Avenue Inc. / H. Blair, S. Kearns, C&W

The brokerage for energy traders and investors subleased space.

118 East 28th St

800

East Coast Skin Care / Lillian Donnelly, AC Lawrence

Windsor Management Corp. / Represented in-house

The company signed a five-year lease for a new venture, Glitter Toos, which manufactures glitter tattoos for children.

34 West 33rd St

705

Bambola of New York Inc. / David Levy, Adams & Co.

Arcade Building Associates / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The children’s wear company signed a new, four-year, 11-month lease. The reported asking rent was $42 per square foot.

421 Seventh Ave

580

Cho CPA / M. Kabiri, W. Stein, Manhattan Commercial Realty

n/a / Evan Cooper, AAG Management

The accounting firm signed a five-year lease.

40 West 37th St

577

LDC Inc. / M. Kabiri, W. Stein, Manhattan Commercial Realty

n/a / n/a

The tenant signed a two-year office lease.

463 Seventh Ave

305

Larry Macari / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The Arsenal Company LLC / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The tailor renewed its office lease. The reported asking rent was $36 per square foot.

Retail leases Address

Size

Tenant / Representative

Landlord / Representative

Notes

120 West 42nd St

30,000

Equinox / n/a

The Blackstone Group / n/a

The fitness chain signed a lease to be the first anchor tenant at the retail project, Crain’s reported.

40 Wall St

25,000

Duane Reade / n/a

Trump Organization / J. Lichtenberg, J. Horowitz, C&W

The drugstore signed a retail lease, the New York Observer reported.

3 Columbus Circle

21,159

CVS / Jason Pruger, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

SL Green; Moinian Group / Jeff Winick, Winick Realty

The drugstore signed a 15-year lease for another location.

2857 West 8th St (Brooklyn)

9,418

Deal$ by Dollar Tree / E. Bukai, R. Senior, M. Mahony, Ripco Real Estate

2857 West 8th St. Associates LLC / Sam Mizrahi, Century 21 Mizrahi Realty

The discount chain signed a lease for another location.

5201 Avenue N (Brooklyn)

8,007

Deal$ by Dollar Tree / R. Senior, E. Bukai, M. Mahony, Ripco Real Estate

CLL Holding Corp. / R. Senior, E. Bukai, M. Mahony, Ripco Real Estate

The discount chain inked a lease for another location.

1750 Coney Island Ave (Brooklyn)

8,000

AutoZone Inc. / R. Senior, E. Bukai, Ripco Real Estate

n/a / Premier Properties

The auto parts and accessories retailer signed a 10-year lease. The former car dealership includes a 12,000-square-foot parking lot.

1325 and 1330 Fifth Ave

6,750

Sunshine Day Care / F. Consolo, J. Aquino, A. Maglio, Prudential Douglas Elliman

n/a / F. Consolo, J. Aquino, A. Maglio, Prudential Douglas Elliman

The daycare center signed an expansion lease and renewed its existing lease.

1535 Third Ave

5,300

Modell’s Sporting Goods / Represented in-house

The Olnick Organization / M. Krell, A. Yunis, CBRE

The sporting-goods retailer signed an expansion lease. The tenant will now occupy 34,000 square feet.

1400 Broadway

4,691

Tossed / L. Block, H. Shapiro, Winick Realty

W&H Properties / Jared Lack, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

The salad maker signed a lease.

28 East 23rd St

4,500

Tiger Schulmann’s Mixed Martial Arts / Jonathan Burke, J. W. Burke & Company

Estate of Sol Goldman / Represented in-house

The martial arts studio signed a lease.

87-10 Northern Blvd (Queens)

3,840

Tiger Schulman’s Mixed Martial Arts / Jonathan Burke, J. W. Burke & Company

Babaev Group / n/a

The martial arts studio leased space.

176-180 Third Ave

3,550

Urgent Care Manhattan / K. Ota, J. Prufer, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

Solil Management Corp. / Represented in-house

The emergency clinic signed a retail lease for its second Manhattan location.

215-15 Northern Blvd (Queens)

3,500

Tiger Schulman’s Mixed Martial Arts / Jonathan Burke, J. W. Burke & Company

Babaev Group / n/a

The martial arts studio inked a lease.

61-22 Fresh Pond Rd (Queens)

3,428

Tiger Schulmann’s Mixed Martial Arts / Jonathan Burke, J. W. Burke & Company

n/a / Cris Zenobio, Titan Construction

The martial arts studio signed a lease.

167 Orchard St

3,000

Slipper Room / Joshua Frank, Misrahi Realty

HSRE / Harold Sherr, HSRE

The burlesque venue signed a retail lease on the second and third floors.

133 East 65th St

2,928

n/a / n/a

n/a / J. Lovatt, G. Garvin, Massey Knakal

A restaurant signed a lease.

19-21 Ludlow St

2,700

Central Booking Brooklyn LLC / M. Kabiri, W. Stein, Manhattan Commercial Realty

n/a / Cindy Chow, Golden Key Realty

The central booking office signed a five-year retail lease with a five-year option to renew.

53 East Eighth St

2,362

Just Salad / M. Gorman, J. Gettler, New Street Realty

n/a / B. Spiegel, W. Bergman, Rose Associates

The salad eatery signed a 12-year lease.

1311 Lexington Ave

2,300

Flowers by Phillip / JP Sutro, Lee & Associates

Cheshire Group / P. Braus, P. Levitan, Lee & Associates

The florist signed a 10-year lease. The reported asking rent was $250 per square foot.

31-74 Steinway St (Queens)

2,150

Uni K Wax / Adam Goldschmidt, AG Consulting

n/a / Doug Weinstein, Ripco Real Estate

The hair-removal salon signed a lease. The reported asking rent was $75 per square foot.

112 West 34th St

1,837

Swatch Group / D. Green, S. Schmerzler, C&W

W&H Properties / J. Podell, I. Lerner, C&W

The watch retailer signed a 10-year lease for a concept store.

307 Atlantic Ave (Brooklyn)

1,800

The Sliding Door Company / Yigal Yedidsion, Real Estate Investors Group

n/a / Kristina Triglia, CPEX Real Estate

The door showroom signed an eight-year retail lease for its second New York City location.

28-30 West 125th St

1,800

Iconic Hair Concepts / n/a

n/a / W. Suarez, D. Chkheidze, Massey Knakal

The hair salon signed a lease.

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Retail leases continued Address

Size

Tenant / Representative

Landlord / Representative

Notes

666 Third Ave (Chrysler Building)

1,500

Lenny’s / n/a

n/a / n/a

The sandwich chain signed a lease for its 15th Manhattan location. Ronald Kremnitzer of Pryor Cashman LLP served as counsel on behalf of the tenant.

35 Crosby St

1,500

Bonobos / Justin Fantasia, RKF

DAJ Realty LLC / Beth Rosen, RKF

The e-commerce apparel brand signed a lease.

383 West 125th St

1,400

Supra / n/a

n/a / David Chkheidze, Massey Knakal

The footwear retailer signed a lease.

303 Park Ave South

1,400

Salad Pangea / P. Carrillo, R. Buckley, SBC Associates

n/a / n/a

The salad maker signed a lease for its first New York location.

1095 Second Ave

1,270

Four Seasons Frozen Yogurt / Global Opportunities Realty

Second Avenue Properties LLC / P. Braus, J. Sutro, Lee & Associates

The frozen yogurt shop signed a 10-year lease. The reported asking rent was $113 per square foot.

463 Seventh Ave

1,247

AISAM Inc. / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The Arsenal Company LLC / David Levy, Adams & Co.

The tenant signed a new, nine-year, 11-month retail lease. The reported asking rent was $100 per square foot.

334 First Ave

1,213

Second Time Around / S. Galin, D. Handler, Handler Real Estate

ST Owner LP / B. Spiegel, W. Bergman, Rose Associates

The consignment fashion retailer signed a long-term lease for a location at the Stuyvesant Town residential complex.

16 West 8th St

1,200

Café Nadery / T. Vieuille, F. Peyrot, City Square Group

Friedland Properties / Represented in-house

The Iranian café signed a 12-year lease for its first New York City location.

24 West 8th St

1,100

5 oz. Factory / J. Pennington, Z. Nathan, Ripco Real Estate

n/a / E. Diaz, W. Abramson, Buchbinder + Warren

The gourmet eatery signed a lease.

200 Franklin St (Brooklyn)

1,005

n/a / n/a

n/a / A. Clemens, M. Lively, Massey Knakal

A florist signed a lease.

110 West End Ave

950

Pinnacle Wine & Spirits / n/a

n/a / David Chkheidze, Massey Knakal

The wine shop signed a lease.

61 East 8th St

875

Flip Flop Shops / A. Cukier, J. Pruger, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

n/a / B. Spiegel, W. Bergman, Rose Associates

The shoe retailer signed a five-year lease.

2303 Broadway

800

Oren’s Daily Roast / Dan Gronich, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

n/a / B. Fox, D. Chkheidze, Massey Knakal

The coffee chain signed a lease for another location.

1 MacDougal Alley

625

Mirador Art / Joel Fitzpatrick, Brick Realty

n/a / E. Diaz, W. Abramson, Buchbinder & Warren

The fashion accessories retailer signed a lease.

1240 Lexington Ave

500

Pickles, Olives, etc. / Garry Steinberg, Lee & Associates

Suru Realty LLC / Allen Abbani, Cornerstone Management

The distributor of pickles, olives and cheeses signed a 10-year lease. The reported asking rent was $175 per square foot.

973 Columbus Ave

500

n/a / n/a

n/a / David Chkheidze, Massey Knakal

A Mexican restaurant signed a lease.

158 Lafayette St

300

Juice Bar / J. Famularo, R. Idnani, NYCRS

Time Equities / J. Famularo, R. Idnani, NYCRS

The beverage shop signed a 10-year lease.

Buys Address

Size

Buyer / Representative

Seller / Representative

Notes

27 Grand St

20-story, 70,000 sf hotel

n/a / n/a

Brack Capital Real Estate / n/a

The James Hotel sold for about $85 million. The property debuted in 2010 and is managed by Denihan Hospitality Group. The hotel is home to the famed restaurant of star chef David Burke. Denihan will continue to manage the hotel and operations will remain unchanged under the property’s new ownership, according to the seller.

49 Bond St (Brooklyn)

Development site

n/a / n/a

n/a / B. Knakal, S. Palmese, Massey Knakal

The property sold for $70 million. Zoning allows for a development of about 500,000 square feet as of right or up to about 600,000 square feet through the use of inclusionary housing bonuses.

490 Fulton St (Brooklyn)

120,000 sf res. condo

Harrison Street Real Estate / n/a

Crown Acquisitions / n/a

The top three floors of the building sold for $62.74 million, the New York Post reported. The space consists of 120 dorm rooms for Long Island University students.

Williamsburg portfolio

72 res. units and 12 townhouses

SL Green; Magnum Real Estate Group / n/a

Triton Realty Group / n/a

The package of residential properties sold for $51.5 million. The portfolio includes 44 condominium units at 195 Berry Street for $19.58 million, or about $445,000 per unit; 28 condos at 248 Bedford Avenue for $14.1 million, or about $503,000 per unit; and 12 townhouses at 129 North Third Street for $17.8 million, or about $1.5 million each.

525-541 Atlantic Ave (Brooklyn)

Mixed-use development

Thor Equities / n/a

B. Berger, BCB Properties; A. Lifshitz, DSA Management / n/a

The Atlantic Gardens development sold for $23 million. The project includes 24 rental units and nine stores.

511-515 West 36th St

Development site

n/a / Azita Aghravi, Eastern Consolidated

National Acoustics / Nancy Tran, Eastern Consolidated

The property sold for $21.25 million. The site is currently occupied by a sixstory commercial loft building comprised of approximately 37,929 square feet.

152 Ludlow St and 149-151 Essex St

2 apt. bldgs, 22 units total

Four Winds Real Estate / Louis Moskowitz, GFI Realty

149-151 Essex Street Associates / Marc Alper, GFI Realty

The properties sold for $19.1 million.

102 West 79th St

6-story, 20,281 sf apt. bldg, 36 units total

n/a / George Niblock, FriedmanRoth Realty

n/a / Joseph Arnold Smith, Friedman-Roth Realty

The elevator building sold for $16.65 million, or about $815 per square foot.

333 Sixth Ave

Retail condo

Jackson Group / n/a

Cornelia Commercial Holding / Mark Gjonbalaj, Marcus & Millichap

The retail condo at the base of a residential building sold for $16.5 million. The condo’s retail spaces are currently occupied by a Papaya Dog and the risqué stores Fantasy Parties and Fantasy Tattoo. The buyer expects to replace the tenants with more mainstream retailers.

172 West 79th St

41 res. condo units

n/a / n/a

n/a / G. Garvin, P. Smadbeck, Massey Knakal

The package of apartments at the Hopkins Condominium sold for $16.25 million, or $402 per square foot. The apartments consist of 22 two-bedrooms and 19 one-bedrooms. Thirty-three are rent stabilized, and eight are rent controlled.

137-143 North 10th St (Brooklyn)

5-story, 30,000 sf apt. bldg

Local developer / Shay Zach, Itzhaki Properties

n/a / Shay Zach, Itzhaki Properties

The condo-conversion building sold for $15.95 million.

213-215 Madison Ave

10-story apt. bldg, 37 units total

Infinity Urban Century / Amit Doshi, Besen & Associates

Bahram Hakakian / Amit Doshi, Besen & Associates

The property sold for $12.5 million.

265-267 South 2nd St (Brooklyn)

6-story apt. bldg, 35 units total

Silverstone Property Group / n/a

n/a / B. Maddigan, M. Lively, Massey Knakal

The property sold for $9.7 million, or about $425 per square foot. The price represents a capitalization rate of 4.9 percent and a gross rent multiple of about 13.

420-430 Carroll St (Brooklyn)

130,752 buildable sf development site

Carroll Street Holdings LLC / n/a

AI Gowanus Village LLC / TerraCRG

The property sold for $9 million, or $69 per buildable square foot.

4452 Broadway

97,119 buildable sf development site

n/a / V. Sozio, S. Shkury, M. Tortorici, J. Deutch, Ariel Property Advisors

The property sold for $7.3 million.

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Buys continued Address

Size

Buyer / Representative

Seller / Representative

Notes

567 Seventh Ave

4-story, 4,149 sf retail bldg

n/a / n/a

n/a / P. Massey, R. Knakal, R. Horvath, Massey Knakal

The property sold for $7.25 million. The building is net leased to Paris Baguette, a Korean baked-goods chain.

331 Keap St (Brooklyn)

6-story mixed-use bldg

n/a / L. Mavashev, G. Raff, Besen & Associates

The property sold for $6.5 million.

538 East 89th St

10-unit apt. bldg

n/a / n/a

Private investor / P. Von Der Ahe, S. Edelstein, S. Glasser, Marcus & Millichap

The property sold for $6.12 million.

313 West 77th St

5,898 sf apt. bldg, 11 units total

n/a / n/a

n/a / V. Sozio, S. Shkury, M. Tortorici, J. Deutch, Ariel Property Advisors; W. Jakubowski, Brown Harris Stevens

The property sold for $5.2 million. The site has approximately 1,046 square feet of air rights.

40 Broad St

16,733 sf comm. condo

161 Mav LLC / J. Dayan, A. BenDayan, J. Ben-Dayan, Winoker Realty

n/a / D. Lebenstein, S. Bellwood, E. Kent, Cassidy Turley

The sixth-floor commercial condo at the Setai sold for $5.18 million.

2070 and 2074 Arthur Ave (The Bronx)

2 apt. bldgs, 54 units total

King Penguin Opportunity Fund LLC / n/a

AREA / Ronnie Shaban, Besen & Associates

The properties sold for $4.23 million, or about $93 per square foot. The price represents a capitalization rate of 7.8 percent and a gross rent multiple of 6.3.

192 Seventh Ave South

1-story retail bldg

Jackson Group / n/a

Tilou Realty / Mark Gjonbalaj, Marcus & Millichap

The property sold for $4.1 million. The buyer plans to redevelop the building and replace the existing tenant, adult novelty store Fantasy World.

57-59 East 125th St

2 mixed-use bldgs

n/a / n/a

n/a / Lev Kimyagarov, Massey Knakal

The contiguous properties sold for $3.6 million, or about $160 per buildable square foot. The site allows for approximately 22,455 buildable square feet as of right.

6 West 20th St

4,500 sf comm. co-op

n/a / n/a

n/a / B. Emmetsberger, J. Ciraulo, Massey Knakal

The sixth-floor commercial co-op unit sold for $3.6 million, or about $800 per square foot.

104 East 10th St

2,800 sf apt. bldg

North Sydney LLC / n/a

104 East 10th Street LLC / D. Barcelowsky, Y. Ak, Misrahi Realty

The property sold for $3.5 million.

542 Cathedral Pkwy

4-story apt. bldg, 5 units total

n/a / n/a

n/a / Hall Oster, Massey Knakal

The townhouse sold for $3.4 million, or about $671 per square foot. The site contains approximately 10,673 buildable square feet.

356 East 13th St

Development site

536 East 13th LLC / n/a

East Village Realty LLC / D. Barcelowsky, Misrahi Realty; J. Wolfson, ERG Property Advisors

The lot sold for $3.28 million.

131 West 33rd St

6,187 sf office condo

F.D. Worldwide Merchandise Group / C. Abdo, R. Somwaru, A. BenDayan, Winoker Realty

Time Equities / Brandon Medeiros, Time Equities

The 17th-floor office condo sold for $2.9 million.

512 Broome St

1,011 sf retail bldg

Hollywood 95 Associates LTD / Michael Rothstein, Marcus & Millichap

RHS Ventures Inc. / B. Dansker, Z. Ziskin, Marcus & Millichap

The property sold for $2.8 million.

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Buys continued Address

Size

Buyer / Representative

Seller / Representative

Notes

156 Broadway (Brooklyn)

8,619 buildable sf development site

Upreal Broadway LLC / n/a

Verav Equities Inc. / TerraCRG

The property sold for $2.65 million, or $307 per buildable square foot.

181 12th St (Brooklyn)

5,880 sf apt. bldg

n/a / A. Hess, J. Colleran, K. Royer, TerraCRG

The property sold for $2 million, or $334 per square foot. The price represents a capitalization rate of 5.7 percent and a gross rent multiple of 12.2.

1635 Albany Ave (Brooklyn)

18,500 sf industrial bldg

Safeguard Storage / Allan Profeta, Premier Properties

Albany Roe Corp. / Jean Cook, Kalmon Dolgin Affiliates

The property sold for $1.9 million. The buyer plans to develop a self-storage facility on the site.

684-686 Willoughby Ave (Brooklyn)

3 apt. bldgs, 9 units total

n/a / n/a

n/a / Michael Amirkhanian, Massey Knakal

The contiguous properties sold for $1.8 million, or about $144 per square foot.

21 Broadway Terrace

17-unit apt. bldg

Private investor / P. Von Der Ahe, S. Edelstein, S. Glasser, Marcus & Millichap

The property sold for $1.75 million.

524 Lorimer St (Brooklyn)

Mixed-use bldg

n/a / M. Salvatico, S. Riney, Marcus & Millichap

Private investor / S. Riney, M. Salvatico, Marcus & Millichap

The property sold for $1.7 million, or $502 per square foot.

11-13 St. Marks Pl

12,991 buildable sf development site

SGI USA / n/a

Computime Inc. / TerraCRG

The property sold for $1.65 million, or $127 per buildable square foot.

800 Second Ave

3,059 sf comm. condo

BR Architect P.C. / Carter McHyman, Douglas Elliman

CD 800 / J. Dayan, A. BenDayan, J. Ben-Dayan, Winoker Realty

The commercial condo sold for $1.6 million.

1289 Louis Nine Blvd (The Bronx)

1-story retail bldg

n/a / n/a

n/a / Nick Burns, Massey Knakal

The building sold for $1.55 million, or about $125 per square foot.

602 Pacific St (Brooklyn)

2,664 sf mixed-use bldg

n/a / n/a

n/a / M. Lively, K. Freeman, B. Maddigan, Massey Knakal

The property sold for $1.5 million, or about $563 per square foot.

278 Dean St (Brooklyn)

8-unit apt. bldg

Silvershore Properties / Marcel Fridman, Barcel Group

Local investor / Marcel Fridman, Barcel Group

The property sold for $1.4 million.

330 East 117th St

4-story apt. bldg, 5 units total

Local investor / K. Zamir, R. Abudi, GFI Realty

Local investor / Kobi Zamir, GFI Realty

The walk-up building sold for $1.26 million. The price represents a gross rent multiple of 10.

262-264 Greene Ave (Brooklyn)

Development site

Darren Foote; Kristen Dodge / n/a

Green Hill Residence LLC / TerraCRG

The property sold for $1.25 million.

363 South 4th St (Brooklyn)

9-unit apt. bldg

Private investor / E. Lundberg, S. Riney, Marcus & Millichap

The property sold for $1.23 million.

47-33 Little Neck Pkwy (Queens)

1-story retail bldg

n/a / n/a

n/a / Stephen Preuss, Massey Knakal

The property sold for $1.2 million, or $343 per square foot. The building is net-leased to an auto service center.

452 West 145th St

4-story, 3,328 sf apt. bldg, 6 units total

n/a / n/a

n/a / M. Levine, J. Nelson, J. Lipton, Massey Knakal

The property sold for $1.1 million, or about $331 per square foot.

Financing Address

Size

Borrower / Representative

Lender / Representative

Notes

10 East 29th St

50-story apt. bldg, 404 units total

Invesco / J. Rose, S. Klein, HFF

Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers / n/a

A $150 million loan was provided for the Madison Belvedere.

132 Fourth Ave

178-room hotel

Hersha Hospitality Trust / J. Kelso, E. Lee, C&W

Natixis Real Estate Capital / n/a

A $55 million floating-rate loan was provided for the acquisition of the Hyatt Union Square Hotel.

380 Riverside Dr

132-unit apt. bldg

380 Riverside Tenantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $6 million first mortgage and a $1 million line of credit were arranged for the building.

69-10 Yellowstone Blvd (Queens)

153-unit apt. bldg

Mayflower Owners Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $5 million first mortgage and a $500,000 line of credit were arranged for the building.

16 East 96th St

36-unit apt. bldg

16 East 96th Street Apartment Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $5 million first mortgage was arranged for the building.

139 West 82nd St

74-unit apt. bldg

Columbus W 82 Apartments Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $4 million first mortgage was arranged for the building.

2 East End Ave

55-unit apt. bldg

Two East End Avenue Apartment Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $4 million first mortgage was arranged for the building.

151-20 and 151-40 88th St (Queens)

148-unit apt. bldg

Fairfield Arms Cooperative Corporation / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $2.8 million first mortgage and a $500,000 line of credit were arranged for the building.

718 Broadway

39-unit apt. bldg

718 Apts., Inc. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $2.8 million first mortgage and a $500,000 line of credit were arranged for the building.

675 Academy St

60-unit apt. bldg

Ivy League Apartment Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $2.1 million first mortgage and a $500,000 line of credit were arranged for the building.

345 Montgomery St (Brooklyn)

99-unit apt. bldg

345 Montgomery Owners Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $2 million first mortgage and a $500,000 line of credit were arranged for the building.

144-07/11 Sanford Ave (Queens)

83-unit apt. bldg

Coral Gardens Owners Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $2.4 million first mortgage was arranged for the building.

176 East 71st St

96-unit apt. bldg

The Townsend House Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $2 million line of credit was arranged for the building.

250 Park Pl (Brooklyn)

27-unit apt. bldg

Le Metro Housing Corp. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $1.2 million first mortgage and a $250,000 line of credit were arranged for the building.

132 East 72nd St

16-unit apt. bldg

132 Associates Inc. / n/a

NCB / n/a

A $1 million first mortgage and a $200,000 line of credit were arranged for the building.

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Other Deals Aby Rosen’s RFR takes full ownership of Seagram Building Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’ RFR Holding has taken full ownership of the iconic Seagram Building in Midtown, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. RFR paid off various stakeholders and borrowed roughly $1 billion to refinance the debt on the 38-story building at 375 Park Avenue, according to loan securitization filings seen by the Journal. The new loan carries a relatively low 3.5 percent interest rate. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

Bloomberg LP adding space at 120 Park Avenue Bloomberg LP is taking 68,000 more square feet at its 120 Park Avenue address, the New York Post reported last month. Although the media and financial organization is based at the Bloomberg Tower at 731 Lexington Avenue, the company leased 482,399 square feet, or 12 floors, at the 600,000-square-foot, 26-story Park Avenue office tower in 2011, as The Real Deal reported. Now, Bloomberg has taken additional space for its Midtown East satellite office, including one full floor and a wraparound terrace, the Post said. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

Yahoo! to take space in former NYT building Hot on the heels of its $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging platform Tumblr, tech giant Yahoo! announced that it would open new offices in the former New York Times building, according to published reports. The move is part of Yahoo!’s push to expand their New York City presence by 60 percent. Yahoo! will take four floors at the 767,000-square-foot Blackstone Group–owned building, located at 229 West 43rd Street, and consolidate its New York employees, who currently work out of offices at 1065 Avenue of the Americas, 1540 Broadway, and 11 West 19th Street. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

McDonald’s returns to Madison Square Park with 99-year lease McDonald’s recently inked a 99-year lease for a two-story building next to luxury condominium tower One Madison Park, capping years of legal turmoil for the fast food chain that has fought to return to a block it left in 2005. McDonald’s on April 15 signed the lease for 26 East 23rd Street, owned by a company called Flamingo LLC, controlled by investor Abe Shrem, city records published last month show. The deal is a triple-net lease, meaning the tenant will cover all expenses. The city valued the lease at $4.7 million, but neither Shrem nor McDonald’s

Judi A. Desiderio, President

Janet Hummel, Managing Partner

Nancy McGann, Managing Partner

would discuss the price. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

foot at the property. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

Nazarian, Moin nab adjacent building to enlarge planned SLS Murray Hill hotel

Silverstein wins $660 million loan for LoMa luxury tower

Hotel mogul Sam Nazarian and Moin Development’s David Moinian have purchased a pet hospital next to their 444 Park Avenue South hotel conversion project, according to a release from Daniel T Enterprises, a commercial real estate firm that brokered the deal. The duo paid $4 million for the 4,200-square-foot property, located at 47 East 30th Street, which will be an addition to their hotel, the release said. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

Silverstein Properties reached an agreement with a Londonbased investment firm for a construction loan of up to $660 million to build an ultra-luxury Lower Manhattan tower, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. Silverstein’s Larry Silverstein had previously tried to build the 926-foot condoand-hotel building at 30 Park Place, but plans were shelved after the economy tanked in 2008. If the financing deal with Children’s Investment Fund Management does close, the developer will have his second shot at the project. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

British firm buys lease for Broadway’s Foxwoods Theatre Britain’s biggest theater company has purchased a longterm lease for Broadway’s biggest venue, Foxwoods Theatre, for an estimated $60 million, the New York Times reported. Ambassador Theater Group secured the lease that — if renewed — extends through 2073, the company’s executives told the newspaper. The 1,932-seat theater, at 213 West 42nd Street, is now home to “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” Live Nation put Foxwoods on the market in December after operating for the building owner, nonprofit New 42nd Street. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

Witkoff, Lorber and Fisher pay $200M for St. John’s campus St. John’s University last month announced an agreement to sell its satellite Tribeca building at 101 Murray Street to a joint venture of Fisher Brothers, Howard Lorber and Witkoff Group, which plan to raze the building to construct condominiums, Crain’s reported. Fisher, Lorber and Witkoff paid more than $200 million for the 10-story, 145,525-square-foot property, a source familiar with the deal told The Real Deal. The school plans to use the proceeds from the sale to bulk up its endowment, academic offerings and facilities. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

PR firm takes new digs at Minskoff’s 1166 Ave. of the Americas

Blaichman secures $23M sale of Tribeca lot

Communications firm 5W Public Relations has taken a 38,166-square-foot space at Minskoff Equities’ 1166 Avenue of the Americas, the company’s CEO, Ronn Torossian, told The Real Deal last month. “Our employees and clients are already asking about a Thanksgiving day parade party now that the Macy’s parade goes down Sixth Avenue,” Torossian said. 5WPR sublet the entire fourth floor in the 44-story, 1.5 million-square-foot building from investment management firm D.E. Shaw & Co. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

Charles Blaichman’s CB Developers has sold a Tribeca development site to Hoboken, N.J.-based Applied Development Company for $23.2 million, mere months after paying Fishman Holdings $22 million for the plot, city records filed last month show. The deal closed April 30. The 7,569-square-foot vacant lot is located at 87 Chambers Street between Broadway and Church Street and is zoned for a 56,918-square-foot development, according to PropertyShark. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.)

Engineering nonprofit decamps for 120 Wall Street

Bonjour Capital takes over Bed-Stuy rental building stalled for last six years

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers is leaving behind Murray Hill for a skyscraper in the Financial District. The nonprofit signed a long-term, 16,506-squarefoot lease at the Silverstein Properties-owned 120 Wall Street after scouring Midtown South and Downtown for two years, said Leon Manoff of brokerage Colliers International in a release reported by the New York Observer. Asking rents were in the upper-$30s per square

Bonjour Capital has finally closed on a long-stalled BedfordStuyvesant apartment complex that has been the subject of much dispute, paying $16 million, an attorney for Bonjour confirmed to The Real Deal last month. The deal will allow the new owner to proceed with the 57-unit rental project. The conversion of the industrial building at 333-345 Greene Avenue is about 70 percent complete. (The deal was announced after the deadline for the Deal Sheet.) TRD

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Sales have launched at the six-story boutique condominium building, which has 10 homes. The one- and two-bedroom residences range in size from 635 square feet to 1,269 square feet and in price from $550,000 to $949,000. Building amenities include Jacuzzi-style tubs and custom steam showers, washer-dryer hookups and basement storage space. Aptsandlofts.com is the marketing agent. Contact: aptsandlofts.com.

The Residences at 400 Fifth Avenue 400 Fifth Avenue The residential apartments on the top 30 floors of Langham Place, a 60-story, 214room luxury hotel, are now more than 80 percent sold. The Residences range in size from one bedrooms to six-plus bedrooms, and in price from $2.2 million to $6.95 million. The still-available 5,645-square-foot penthouse duplex has four bedrooms and 6.5 baths; the asking price is $33 million. Building amenities include Measure, a lounge featuring nightly jazz performances; a spa and fitness club; and Ai Fiori, an award-winning restaurant featuring cuisine by chef and owner Michael White. Douglas Elliman is the listing agent. Contact: www.400fifthavenue.com.

Soho Renwick Modern 22 Renwick Street Sales have been launched at the 12-story condominium tower, which has 18 units. The building, designed by Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects, has homes with two and three bedrooms, ranging in size from 998 square feet to 1,895 square feet and in price from $1.5 million to $4.12 million. The project’s amenities include a doorman, private storage and bicycle storage, and a 421-A tax abatement. DelShah Capital and On the Level Enterprises are the developers; Brown Harris Stevens Select is the listing agent. Contact: www.renwickmodern.com.

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The 438-unit condominium building that RAL Companies converted from a Jehovah’s Witness printing plant is 95 percent sold. Among the handful of apartments still available are one-bedrooms ranging in price from $835,000 to $1.25 million. Amenities in the building, managed by the Spandrel Group, include a fitness center, a yoga studio, a children’s playroom, a movie room, a golf-simulator room, a billiards room, two video-game lounges, a luxury spa for dogs and a 24-hour doorman. MNS Real Estate is the listing agent. Contact: www.onebrooklyn.com.

Greenpoint

The Marquand 11 East 68th Street Sales have launched at the 13-story residential building, newly renovated by the HFZ Capital Group. The four-, five- and six-bedroom homes — Shelton, Mindel & Associates handled the interior design — range in size from 3,795 square feet to more than 6,000 square feet. Prices start at about $15 million. Building amenities include a fitness center, a children’s lounge, a doorman, concierge services, storage rooms and a live-in building manager. Douglas Elliman Development Marketing is the listing agent. Contact: www.11east68th.com.

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Two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath co-op unit in a postwar elevator building (the Sovereign); apartment has central air, washer/dryer, balcony; building has doorman, concierge, gym, garage; asking price $2.19 million; nine months on the market. (Brokers: Jessica Ushan, Brown Harris Stevens; Lindsey Owen, Town Residential) “I have known the seller for many years, as I was the listing broker when they bought the apartment. We had multiple bids from qualified buyers. The buyers, who live overseas, had already decided that they loved the building from a prior visit. They bought the apartment from photos and didn’t see it until they flew in for the board interview. [That made the owner] a little nervous, but he was there for their visit and it went very well. The board approval process was very smooth.” Jessica Ushan, Brown Harris Stevens

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Soho $3.22 million 464 Broome Street, Apt. 5W

Two-bedroom, two-bath, 2,200-squarefoot co-op unit in a prewar elevator building; apartment has direct elevator access, skylight and claw-foot tub; building has full-time super, roof deck; one week on the market. (Brokers: Henry Hershkowitz and Heather McDonough, Douglas Elliman; Robert Dankner, Prime Manhattan Residential) “I met the buyer at an open house of mine — another property in Soho — that he liked, but it was not ‘the one.’ He had been looking on his own for about a year and was skeptical that I could help, but asked me to prove my value. We looked at about 30 apartments over the course of eight months. This build-

ing has two retail leases that generate income for the building, so there are no maintenance costs and the unit actually receives an annual dividend of $20,000. [My client] liked that, as well as the location. And [the unit] is on the top floor and there are two massive skylights in the living room that bring in more light and air. There was enormous competition for the apartment and it was clearly priced under-market. [To determine what to bid] we had to assess what the fair market value was, which was as much as $750,000 more [than the asking price.]” Robert Dankner, Prime Manhattan

Upper East Side $1.4 million 363 East 76th Street, Apt. 8F

Three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,700-squarefoot co-op unit in a postwar elevator building (Sherman Towers East); apartment has hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops; building has fulltime doorman, live-in super, private storage, bike room, roof deck; common charges $2,125 per month; asking price $1.42 million, 19 weeks on the market. (Brokers: Beverley Rouse, Town Residential; Eugene Litvak, Citi Habitats) “I’ve known the purchasers for years. I rented them their first home about five years ago. They got engaged and wanted an upgrade in space, so we worked together to get them into a larger rental unit. Several years later they were ready to buy. We looked at about 20 apartments. At this unit, they liked the nice views, renovated kitchen and, most importantly, great closet space — several of the units we saw offered very limited storage. But we found out that the pilot lights on the stove were not working and the lights in the kitchen would not switch on. I met the super at the building at 7 a.m. and made sure everything was fully operational before the closing. What made this deal particularly interesting is that the couple was expecting [a baby] and they were due a few days before the closing. We were trying to prepare everyone that we might have to delay the closing because there was a possibility [that my client] could go into labor. But fortunately the baby was cooperative and came a few days after the closing. It was a close call!” Eugene Litvak, Citi Habitats

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Open listings

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Records from the DOS Division of Licensing show 952 real estate complaints filed in 2012. More than half — 506, including some involving advertising — were claims of “untrustworthiness.” DOS can impose fines of up to $1,000 per violation. The DOS is “more of a reactive agency because it would be cost-prohibitive” to monitor all the state’s brokerages, said Gatto of NYSAR. “They’re not out there aggressively as a policing force looking for these violations.” Attorney Neil Garfinkel, residential counsel to the Real Estate Board of New York, agreed that the “bulk of the enforcement” is reactive. Benitez, the DOS spokesperson, disagreed with that characterization, describing the agency’s efforts as “not necessarily a response-to-complaints effort.” Other industry insiders said brokers effectively act as the agency’s eyes and ears, and many don’t hesitate to report violations by competitors. “Many brokers feel that some of their fellow brokers would be all too anxious to report a violation,” said real estate attorney Andrew Herz, a partner at Manhattan law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.

Teaching to the test With the DOS likely unable to prevent rule-breakers, much of the sometimes-tricky responsibility for enforcement will fall to brokerage firms. At City Connections Realty, founder and CEO David Schlamm said he’ll be doing “spot checks” of his agents’ Facebook and Twitter accounts, with help from with the company’s social media coach. Rutenberg is hiring one or two employees at an hourly rate to check every Rutenberg web and social media page, Braddock said, as well as every agent’s business cards and other marketing materials. Firm heads also told TRD that they will install filters on their websites to prevent noncompliant postings. Bond New York already has filters in place on its website to make sure listings don’t inadvertently break Fair Housing laws, said Douglas Wagner, the company’s executive director of leasing. To comply with the new law, he said, the firm has implemented an electronic feed that pushes listings from an internal database on to the firm’s website, allowing better oversight of the content. Such measures can be costly, but Wagner said Bond chalks them up to the cost of doing business. “The benefits of making such an investment far outweigh the short-

term costs involved,” he said, noting that consumers feel more comfortable with agents if they know they’re following the rules. “For real estate agents, offering such clarity and transparency [helps] overcome any level of suspicion or distrust from the consumer,” he said. “It more formally establishes the agent in their professional context.” And he was clear about what would happen to agents who don’t follow the rules: They’ll be shown the door. “Rogue agents will be disassociated,” he said. Warburg Realty already moderates agents’ websites and blog posts, president Frederick Peters said. He added that Warburg has “detailed guidelines in place” for social media, and teaches courses on the subject. For many firms, compliance efforts involve training and education, brokerage heads said. The sales and rental brokerage Citi Habitats plans “to roll out in-office training on the new guidelines at each of our branch offices,” said firm president Gary Malin. “In addition, we will add a class on the new rules to our new agent training, which all new hires must complete.” While the rule change “may be a temporary inconvenience,” he added, “in the end it will increase transparency in our industry, and that’s a good thing.” TRD

Urban Compass from page 40 New York City real estate is “a shark tank,” said Don Tallerman, founder of Urban Edge. “There’s so much money at stake with the commissions that there’s much more competition here.” Urban Compass is well aware of the challenges it faces, Golub told The Real Deal. “There have been many different attempts from many different angles,” he acknowledged. “There are a lot of people out there who think you can’t change the consumer’s experience.” Still, he said, “looking at the landscape and seeing what [other] organizations have tried to do has allowed us to come up with a model that we believe will be successful.”

Unique New York The New York City rental market is unique for its low vacancy rates and high prices. The latest Citi Habitats market report showed April’s Manhattan rental vacancy at 1.28 percent, and the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom at $2,733. The market is also unusual because the renter, rather than the landlord, pays the broker’s fee, said StreetEasy’s Sofia Song. She noted that commissions here are much higher than in other cities. All add up to a major hassle for renters. According to Golub, the major “pain points” that a customer experiences when looking for a New York City apartment are the time it takes, the lack of accurate information on real estate websites, and the broker’s fee. Urban Compass hopes to get rid of the headaches. Here’s how it works: Homeseekers search for rental apartments on the Urban Compass website using several criteria, such as location, size and price. They don’t have to pay to look at the listings but they do have to register and input basic personal information. For now at least, the website lists only rentals, Golub said. As of last month, Urban Compass had more than 5,000 Manhattan and Brooklyn listings, all from landlords and management companies, as well as some exclusives. The company declined to comment on whether it is listing properties owned by Rudin Management, which has a large rental portfolio and is headed by one of its investors. When a user finds an apartment, he schedules an appointment online to see it with a “neighborhood specialist.” 94 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

The specialist has a real estate license and operates much like an agent, showing apartments and negotiating deals — on the client’s behalf, Golub said. There are two significant differences: They are salaried staff members of Urban Compass, not independent contractors, and they do deals in one neighborhood, not all over the city. Once the consumer finds an apartment to rent, the neighborhood specialist uses the Urban Compass iPhone app to alert the company’s closing department, which confirms the deal with the building’s landlord. The lease is executed online, and the company prefers payment by credit card. “The goal is to have everything online and as seamless as possible,” Golub said. One thing that sets Urban Compass apart from the many other New York real estate startups, industry insiders said, is Allon’s track record of Silicon Valley success. Allon is the entrepreneur behind Julpan, an online tool for analyzing social information, which he sold to Twitter for an undisclosed amount in 2011, and the web search algorithm Orion, which was bought by Google in 2006, also for an undisclosed price. And the involvement of Golub and Rudin has offered the same credibility in the real estate world, sources said. “Hiring Gordon was definitely key,” Song said. “You need someone who really understands New York City.” Ilana Schwartz, Tallerman’s partner at Urban Edge, agreed. “The companies that start in other cities and come to New York second have a difficult time,” she said. “But these guys know New York. That gives them an advantage over other tech companies.” Urban Compass has assembled “a very bright group of people,” agreed Larry Friedman of the Manhattan-based rental brokerage A.C. Lawrence. “It’s a new competitor and we welcome that.” One major challenge Urban Compass will have to overcome, however, is keeping the website updated fast enough to keep up with New York’s fast-moving rental market, Schwartz said. When it comes to New York City rentals, she noted, “what was available this morning at 10 a.m. might be gone by 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.”

A tough way to live Another thing that may work in Urban Compass’s favor,

brokers said, is its decision to pay salaries, which theoretically should make specialists more focused on clients than commission-compensated counterparts. That setup could “help elevate the reputation and perception of rental brokers,” who have traditionally been viewed as hyper-aggressive, said Tallerman. “If I’m a consumer and I get better service for half the price, all day long I’ll go there,” he added. Urban Compass declined to say how much its specialists are paid, but said they all also receive equity in the company, as well as benefits such as health insurance and a discounted gym membership. They also can receive additional compensation for exceptional customer service, much like the bonuses paid by the online brokerage Redfin. The Urban Compass client pays the 7.5 percent of a year’s rent to the company, not the neighborhood specialist. On a deal cobrokered with an agent from another firm, the Urban Compass agent receives a 5 percent commission and the other agent gets 7.5 percent, half of a standard commission. Urban Compass has hired 34 specialists throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Most have worked as real estate agents, but some have backgrounds in the performing arts, hospitality or other fields, Golub said. From a real estate agent’s perspective, the Urban Compass model may be an appealing alternative to the ups and downs of the traditional commission model, especially during slower rental seasons. Working in a traditional real estate firm “can be a tough way to live, especially in the first year or two,” said Sandra Sugata, an Urban Compass neighborhood specialist and a former agent at Town Residential. The Urban Compass model, by contrast, “takes the pressure off.” Golub said he expects to see hundreds of employees join Urban Compass if the startup is successful. After that, the company may expand into other cities. Urban Compass doesn’t expect to remain a real estate– focused company for long, though. Company executives confirmed that the second and third phases of the startup’s strategy — after the rollout of the rental platform —would not be real estate–specific. They declined to give details but did say the stages would involve connecting New Yorkers more intimately with their neighborhoods and local businesses. TRD www.TheRealDeal.com January 2012 00

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Brooklyn vs. Manhattan ment in Williamsburg has actually declined by 2.2 percent to $585,493 over the past five years, StreetEasy data shows. Still, the East Village has seen its median asking price drop 18.8 percent to $667,500 during the past five years, according to StreetEasy, putting it more in the range of Williamsburg prices. All those new waterfront towers mean sale prices in Williamsburg are now even higher than on the Lower East Side. Over the past five years, prices on the Lower East Side fell 3.9

from page 53

percent to $490,000, less than Williamsburg’s current median of $585,493. Rentals on the Lower East Side are still slightly more expensive than in Williamsburg, however. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side in March was $3,111, compared to $2,927 in Williamsburg. Due in part to these higher prices, many Manhattanites are widening their search to Brooklyn neighborhoods they might not initially have considered. “I used to see a direct correla-

tion between the Upper East Side and Brooklyn Heights, and the Upper West Side and Park Slope,” Naini said. “I don’t find that so much anymore. I find Upper West Siders anywhere from Downtown Brooklyn to Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. They’re not focused on just one neighborhood.”

The high end

One area where there are still significant discounts in Brooklyn, data shows, is at the very high end of the market. These days, “the price differential for a beautiful floorthrough two-bedroom apart-

ment in Brooklyn Heights versus the West Village is not particularly significant,” Barrett said. But the difference in cost “between townhouses in Brooklyn Heights and townhouses in the West Village is significant.” For example, the holder of the record for Brooklyn’s most expensive single-family home sale is a Brooklyn Heights townhouse at 70 Willow Street once owned by the writer Truman Capote, which sold for $12 million last year. The most expensive Manhattan sale on record, by contrast, is the $88 million deal for a penthouse at 15 Central Park West, which closed in late 2011.

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And it’s rumored that an apartment at Extell Development’s One57 at 157 West 57th Street sold for upwards of $90 million, but the deal has not yet hit public records. Meanwhile, a unit at new development 432 Park went into contract for a reported $95 million, according to published reports late last month. And the priciest townhouse ever sold in Manhattan was the Harkness Mansion on East 75th Street, which went for $53 million in 2006. Current asking prices also show a significant gap between comparable townhouse properties between the two boroughs. A 2,300-square-foot carriage house at 21 Grace Court Alley in Brooklyn Heights, for example, is asking $3.5 million, while a 2,800-square-foot landmarked townhouse at 66 Charles Street in the West Village is listed with Elliman’s the De Niro Team for $8.5 million. Miller said in the first quarter, buyers in the bottom 20 percent of the market paid approximately 30 percent more for Manhattan properties than for comparable properties in Brooklyn. By contrast, buyers in the top 20 percent of the market paid 58 percent more for Manhattan. Barrett attributed the wider gap at the upper end of the market to an historic lack of demand for über-luxury properties in Brooklyn. Traditionally, buyers who could afford to drop several million dollars on a home preferred to remain in Manhattan, she said. And while moneyed buyers’ perceptions of Brooklyn are quickly changing, prices have yet to catch up. “The move to Brooklyn started from the bottom,” Barnett said. “It was people who were priced out of Manhattan who were moving there. Those were the buyers of smaller apartments. The buyers have now changed. Now there are tons of people looking for $5 million townhouses in Brooklyn.” TRD CORRECTIONS A N D C L A R I F I C AT I O N S

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Residential market

the Brooklyn-based rental brokerage Rapid Realty. Several buildings conceived as condos, such as William Beaver House at 15 William Street and 25 Broad Street, became luxury rental buildings after the housing bubble burst. In many of these buildings, developers “list their properties for rent, but are also open to selling,” Lolli said. Lundregan, of Platinum, said some of his “hybrid” clients have had success renting one of these apartments, then putting

Tech leasing

Holliday

from page 16

in a purchase offer three or four months after moving in. Still, brokers said they expect rents to rise even more in the next few months as the traditionally busy summer season gets going. “I see the market getting even more competitive and tighter,” said Jon Kestenbaum, a broker at Miron Properties. “The summer is always the busiest time of year, and landlords know that. Demand is high, and so are prices.” TRD

from page 18

lords sometimes treat their agreements like apartment leases, looking at the founders’ personal credit, for instance, in lieu of business credit, and agreeing to shorter-than-normal leases, sometimes fewer than three years. And to prepare for the fact that some start-ups just don’t make it, landlords will often add a standard “good-guy clause” to the lease, which enables a landlord to go after a tenant’s personal finances should the firm stop paying rent or refuse to vacate. Havens, who late last year represented cloud-computing firm MiMedia in its 3,100-square-foot lease at 32 Court Street, said he has seen similar challenges in downtown Brooklyn. He compared the rise of the tech sector there to its rise in Midtown South in the last decade.

In the face of these challenges, Havens said, many tech tenants in both Manhattan and Brooklyn are continuing to share space with each other. But eventually, he said, landlords will have to better accommodate smaller tech tenants as they aim to become the next Facebook. “These tenants are going to replace the old-time tenants in downtown Brooklyn,” Havens said. “It’s just a matter of time.” TRD

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[SL Green] paid off the loan and ended up controlling the property.” A few months later, SL Green nabbed advertising giant Young & Rubicam as an anchor tenant at the tower. Moinian told TRD that the 3 Columbus deal was “beautifully leased, beautifully done.” “I can write a book about Marc,” he added, singling out Holliday’s ability to “skin a cat in many ways. He is not only very positive, but he has a Route A, Route B and Route C.” Despite its successes, though, SL Green has made its share of mistakes under Holliday — most notably a 2006 mezzanine financing investment in Stuyvesant Town– Peter Cooper Village. SL Green invested $200 million in Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty’s $5.4 billion acquisition of the immense apartment complex. In 2010, with the property at the center of a controversy over rent-stabilized housing, the owners defaulted on their loans and handed over the keys to creditors, leaving SL Green with heavy losses.

pears to be 1604 Broadway, a Times Square retail property where SL Green and Sutton acquired a controlling leasehold interest in 2005. Sutton is no longer involved, and SL Green is now facing a ground lease eviction at the site after missing a series of payments. Holliday confirmed to TRD that the property was in litigation, but did not

Other people’s money Though SL Green is known best for its office projects, Holliday has shown a knack for retail development, too. The REIT has partnered with retail czar Jeff Sutton on marquee retail projects such as 1552 Broadway and a 10-building portfolio on Fifth and Madison avenues, both deals viewed in the industry as unqualified successes. At 1552 Broadway, for example, SL Green and Sutton in 2011 paid the Riese Organization what was considered an exorbitant $136.6 million for the landmarked 15,000-square-foot building. But by striking a lease deal at neighboring 1560 Broadway, which allowed the two properties to be combined, the partnership managed to effectively triple the retail space at the site. In July 2012, the partners announced the clothing store Express as a 30,000-squarefoot anchor tenant at the property, in a deal that could bring in north of $20 million per year, as TRD has reported. In a phone interview with TRD, Sutton described Holliday as “very intelligent,” someone who “always keeps his word” and “very mature about other people making money.” Holliday said SL Green’s retail ventures — comparatively few compared to its office holdings — are “a growing focus.” Of Sutton, Holliday said, “We have kind of a shared point of view in terms of how we value real estate and where we see the emerging market. And we’re very nimble, not only at structuring the transactions, but at financing them. When that works, it works really well.” In Kushner’s view, SL Green was “smart to identify Jeff ’s genius. They helped him do things that he could never have done, and he helped them do things they could never have done.” The only misstep for the partnership ap-

Top, Andrew Mathias; bottom, Jeff Sutton.

elaborate. Sutton declined to comment on the deal. SL Green has also dipped its toe in residential waters. In October 2011, SL Green partnered with Ofer Yardeni’s Stonehenge Partners in a $416 million acquisition of eight Manhattan retail and multi-family properties, including 400 East 57th Street, a 260-unit multi-family building. SL Green and Stonehenge will also do a luxury renovation of a 96-unit building at 1080 Amsterdam Avenue, where the partnership paid $13 million last summer for a 99-year ground lease. And in March, SL Green paid $51.5 million to acquire a newly constructed Williamsburg condo and townhouse portfolio with developer Ben Shaoul. During its first-quarter earnings call in April, Mathias said SL Green is also considering converting 1 Madison Avenue, the 1.18 million-square foot Gramercy Park office building, to residential. These new ventures, sources said, are made possible in part by Holliday’s track record. “The two things you want in a deal,” NGKF’s Kuhn said, “are certainty of closing and a fair person on the other side who’s not trying to take the last nickel off the table. Marc gives you that.” TRD www.TheRealDeal.com January 2012 00

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Commercial market

from page 24

Downtown Even eight months after Hurricane Sandy, there is still evidence of the storm’s fallout in Lower Manhattan. The New York Daily News, for example, wants to sublet one of its floors at 4 New York Plaza, a clear indication that it won’t reoccupy all of its nearly 100,000 square feet in the 22-story tower. Not long after Sandy barreled through the region, the newspaper found it had to relocate because of water damage and moved out of Lower Manhattan when it signed a sublease at 1290 Sixth Avenue in Midtown. The Daily News has not revealed its long-term plans. For other companies, Sandy delayed their plans to move in. Now, those deals are finally wrapping up. The Nation-

al Futures Association, for example, is moving only a few blocks, from 120 Broadway to 1 New York Plaza, a 2.4 million-square-foot building along the East River between Broad and Whitehall streets. Brookfield Office Properties owns the 50-story tower. The private financial services regulatory group began looking at Brookfield’s tower in the summer, but Sandy put the process on hold, said Duncan McCuaig, the landlord’s vice president of leasing. The group signed a 10-year lease for 35,881 square feet on the 43rd floor, CoStar data showed; the asking rent was $49 per foot. That price is $3.38 per foot higher than May’s average asking rent of $45.62. April’s average stood 11 cents higher

— $45.73. The availability rate rose by a tenth of a point, from 15.7 percent to 15.8 percent, Colliers figures showed. Brookfield was represented by McCuaig and a CBRE team of Adam Foster, Zachary Freeman, Desiree Harbacek, Kenneth Rapp, Michael Rizzo and Peter Turchin. CBRE agents Mark Keebler, Bradley Serot, Scott Sloves and Robert Wizenberg represented the association. Interest in 1 New York Plaza has remained high even after the group took the space, McCuaig said. “We have five tenants looking at the building seriously in the 50,000-square-foot-plus range,” he said. “We are seeing all the industries, some traditional like insurance and finance, and some non-traditional, like publishing and apparel.” TRD

“How much capital is he going to have to float into the building’s envelope when his land basis is $800 a foot?” this source said. “There is a ceiling to what partners and lenders will participate in.” The “land value is going to be chasing [Shvo] through the entire process,” one developer said. “He may be able to make it work if everything lines up for him, but not if the market turns against him.” The far west side of the Chelsea market is somewhat untested in terms of luxury product, some marketing experts said. While buildings such as Alf Naman’s HL23 at 515 West 23rd Street have reached prices of more than $2,000 per square foot, at +aRt, a luxury building at 540 West 28th Street — four blocks away from Shvo’s site — prices have dipped as low as $900 a square foot. The penthouse at 245 10th Avenue, abutting Shvo’s site, sold for close to $3,000 a foot in 2012, but its lower-floor units sold for as little as $1,000 a foot. At the Jean Nouvel building at 100 11th Avenue, prices have exceeded $2,000 a foot. Factoring in the cost of the site’s potential environmental issues, and that the building’s second and third floors will be directly on the High Line where passersby can look right in, sources said it was unclear if Shvo will be able to justify his upfront costs. “Beyond the remediation, they have to deal with the rock in West Chelsea,” said one person familiar with building in the area. “It’s a lot more expensive to drill in West Chelsea

than it is in some other parts of Manhattan. At 100 11th Avenue, they had major problems when they started to drill.” Unlike sites at 150 Charles Street in the West Village and 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca, Shvo’s site doesn’t have that wow factor, one person said. “At 150 Charles, their intrinsic value is being a huge amenitized building on probably the last sizable developable lot in one of the most sought-after zip codes in the country,” the person said. The site of 56 Leonard falls between the east and west historic districts in Tribeca, allowing the developers to build taller than the surrounding buildings. “In this instance, there’s no hyper incredible factor,” one source said. Shvo also might have to compete with several other projects in the pipeline in West Chelsea, such as developer Cary Tamarkin’s 10-story project at 508 West 24th Street and a 100,000-square-foot condo project spearheaded by HFZ Capital Group on West 19th Street. “Michael is not going to be building into a dearth of inventory. He’s going to have competition both locally and in the larger landscape,” said one person familiar with the market in the neighborhood. “He will not be the only show in town and that to me right off the bat is a red flag or something that would give me caution.” Still, some warned it would be foolish to write off Shvo. “The thing he’s very good at is getting people talking about him,” Gerringer said. “When you have a risky situation like this, when you hit it right, the returns are there.” TRD

Shvo from page 48 keted by Brock Emmetsberger and James Nelson of Massey Knakal Realty Services. It was challenging to put a price tag on the lot, Nelson said, since there had been few recent land sales in the area. Nelson declined to comment directly on Shvo or his partners. “We looked at comparable sales in the area and a lot of those were topping out at $500 to $600 per buildable square foot,” he said. “We thought when we were asking in the high $600s, we were giving room for buyers to reach for. We certainly weren’t trying to under-price the property.” Still, the ultimate price Shvo and his associates paid surprised some industry experts. “A lot of people expected this was going to go for a big number,” said Robin Schneiderman, director of business development at Terra. “I don’t know if people expected $800 a foot.” The site itself has some quirks, sources said, given that it houses a gas station and could need environmental remediation, increasing the cost basis more. The partners could be “all in for north of $1,500 a foot easily” before carrying costs and interest, one source estimated, making their break-even cost a lot higher than some other developers’ in the neighborhood. “Is this make or break for [Shvo’s] reputation? It probably is,” one broker said. “I don’t think you get a third bite at the apple.” Another developer speculated that the flexibility of those providing the equity will only stretch so far.

City’s real estate records system gets a makeover and more data By Hayley Kaplan CRIS now has new functions and even more data. The Automated City Register Information System, which tracks public real estate records filed throughout the city, including deeds, mortgages and liens, received a makeover in late May from its operator, the New York City Department of Finance. Among the enhancements: a document search exclusively for co-op units, a document search that distinguishes if a mortgage is being recorded as a refinancing or not, and a document search by date range across all boroughs, according to the department’s website. Starting in July, real estate professionals will be able to

submit property documents electronically. Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, echoed the sentiments of many ACRIS users by noting the database’s functionality and accuracy — but suggested the system could be improved even more. “I certainly would love to have a friendlier user interface,” Miller said. “I don’t think anybody looking at it would argue with me.” A bigger problem with ACRIS, he continued, is its “consistency of information” in terms of late postings for co-op data, for example. DOF representatives were not available for comment. TRD

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Lhota lands big real estate donations for NYC mayoral bid Ex-MTA chief beats all other candidates, including front-runner Quinn, in last two months surance, architecture, conBy Adam Pincus oseph Lhota may be a relastruction or brokerage firms tive newcomer to the New but did not specify their line York City mayoral race, but of work in filings, as well as he is amassing real estate conthe immediate families of tributions and beating out his well-known industry players. rivals — including front-runner Lhota, a Republican who Christine Quinn — for industry resigned as chairman of the donations, campaign finance reMetropolitan Transportation cords show. Authority to make his bid, In the latest two-month filing has taken in about $97,000 period, Lhota received $47,475 from real estate–related from more than 100 real estate firms, or about 7 percent of his $1.3 million total. industry donors, including Barry Gosin, CEO of commercial broAlong with Newmark’s kerage Newmark Grubb Knight Gosin, top contributors to Frank, and Alex Goldstein of resthe Lhota campaign include idential owner Samson ManageRobert Billingsley, a vice ment, who each gave the maxichairman at Cassidy Turley, mum $4,950. and Adam Rose, co-president By contrast, Council Speaker of Rose Associates. Quinn, a Democrat, has Quinn drummed up just under $20,000 and another longtime reaped $1.2 million from officer holder, Public Advocate more than 1,000 individuBill de Blasio, raised a mere al contributions from the real $12,730. estate industry since 2007. From top: Joseph Lhota, a The period covers March 12 Republican; Barry Gosin, CEO Real estate represents about through May 11, and the filing of Newmark Grubb Knight 17 percent of the $7 million Frank; and Anthony Weiner, she has raised. deadline was May 15. The Real a Democrat. Deal looked at contributions from In April, Anthony Malkin, individuals who identified themselves as a member of the family that controls the members of the real estate industry, as well Empire State Building and is president of as those who work at development, title in- W&M Properties, wrote a $4,600 check to

Quinn, records show. Bill Thompson, a Democrat and former city comptroller, has pulled in donations from major industry players as well. He raked in a little more than $395,000 in real estate–related contributions, or 12 percent of his $3.3 million haul, since he started collecting donations in 2011. May brought several big real estate contributions for Thompson. Eastdil Secured chairman Benjamin Lambert and Jonathan Tisch, chairman of Loews Corp., each gave the maximum contribution of $4,950. Thompson received $3,750 each from Haim, Stanley and Isaac Chera. Their contributions and an earlier donation from their firm, Crown Acquisitions, total $12,250. Glenwood Management, led by president Leonard Litwin, gave a combined $14,850 to Thompson, all in 2012. The year before, three individuals from H.J. Kalikow & Co., led by Peter Kalikow, gave a combined $14,850. Eight executives from SL Green Realty gave Thompson a total of $6,400 in March. The eight contributions were for $800 each. Former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, who had not officially declared his candidacy yet, pulled in more than $1 million from real estate professionals and related industries from 2007 to 2009, including $21,000 from executives at Vornado Realty Trust, for a total of $4.8 million, or 25 percent of his donations.

Weiner also snagged maximum $4,950 contributions from the wives of top developers, including Ben Ashkenazy’s wife, Debra; Haim Binstock’s wife, Gallya; and Hal Fetner’s wife and three children. City Comptroller John Liu has received about $185,000 from real estate–related individuals since he started taking donations in late 2010, about 5.5 percent of his total of $3.3 million. Liu received major donations from construction companies, such as $4,500 from an executive at J.T. Hwang Enterprises in Flushing and $8,300 from two professionals at Goode Realty in Bushwick. Liu also accepted significant donations from hotel employees. Sam Chang, CEO of McSam Hotel Group, and seven other employees at the firm each gave Liu $800 for a total of $6,400 in 2011. De Blasio has raised nearly $250,000 in real estate–related contributions. Arthur Zeckendorf, co-chairman of Terra Holdings, gave a maximum gift in February. Other top contributor was Victor Elmaleh of WorldWide Holdings. De Blasio’s large real estate contributions nearly halted in the filing period, although Neil Goldmacher, a vice chairman at Newmark, donated $2,500 in April, the campaign board’s website shows. De Blasio’s total real estate contributions come to only about 6 percent of his campaign income of $3.9 million. TRD

CitySpire triplex resurfaces as NYC’s priciest FSBO ever

Penthouse, previously listed with Elliman’s Raphael De Niro, once again asking $100M

By Hiten Samtani he triplex penthouse at CitySpire Center in Midtown is on the market for the second time in less than 12 months, with the same $100 million price tag it had when owner Steven Klar first listed it last summer. This time, though, the property has a new broker — Klar himself, StreetEasy shows. And the nine-figure sum makes the home the priciest for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) listing in Manhattan apartment history. The 8,000-square-foot octagonal unit at 150 West 56th Street has six bedrooms and nine bathrooms spread across the 73rd, 74th and 75th floors, and comes with 3,000 square feet of wraparound terrace space. Klar, president of Long Island real estate developer the Klar Organization, had listed the home in July 2012 with Douglas Elliman’s Raphael De Niro and Victoria Logvinsky (see related story on page 43). The apartment attracted a bit of attention, most notably in April from Nick Candy, who developed London’s One Hyde Park. Yet despite a publicity blitz — Elliman chairman Howard Lorber gave a televised tour — the home languished on the market. Klar pulled the listing in January, about six

102 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

months, or the typical length of an exclusive listing contract, after he first put it up for sale. “Douglas Elliman, they definitely did promote it well,” Klar told The Real Deal. But after the exclusive expired, Klar said he decided that he would let his brokerage

had been brought in to complete the building and market the remaining units, but he took a liking to the penthouse — originally intended for Eichner. “Art is what people are willing to pay for, and an apartment like this is like a piece of

“Douglas Elliman, they definitely did promote it well.” Steven Klar, DEVELOPER AND owner oF THE condo Klar Realty, “which has been in business for over 60 years, take a shot at it.” Klar bought the apartment in 1993 for $4.5 million from the lender that took control of CitySpire from developer Ian Bruce Eichner. Klar, along with Zeckendorf Realty,

art,” Klar told the New York Times when he listed it last year. However, Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel told The Real Deal that if De Niro, described by the real estate appraiser as “one of the most successful and effective brokers in

the business,” couldn’t find a buyer, “it seems unrealistic to throw it on at the same price.” Klar’s inability to find a buyer could be because of the asking price. The apartment is worth closer to $25 million, according to a residential real estate expert who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of damaging ties with Klar. “While penthouses can be unique, they don’t live in a vacuum,” he said, noting that the nearly 700,000-square-foot mixed-use development was constructed in the 1980s and did not have the cachet of the nearby One57 or 15 Central Park West, both of which have had multiple $80 million–plus listings. When the property first hit the market, several top luxury brokers scoffed at the price, as The Real Deal reported. At the time, the penthouse was asking almost three times as much per square foot as its nearest Midtown rivals, according to The Real Deal’s analysis of apartment prices in the neighborhood. When asked why he believed the apartment was worth the $100 million price tag, Klar said, “I like going out on my terraces, and I think other people will enjoy that, too.” But, he added: “Really, I don’t know what it’s worth. I’m not going to say, ‘I’ll take $100 [million] and nothing less.’” TRD www.TheRealDeal.com January 2013 67

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Coughlin Group received Chubb's 2013 Elite Cornerstone Agency Designation Recognized as one of Chubb's Top-Performing Agencies Nationwide. 116 May 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

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www.TheRealDeal.com June 2013 105

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NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate Alumni Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary

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MICHAEL P. HIGGINS ’92 Managing Director and Head, Real Estate Finance, CIBC World Markets Corp

WE THANK OUR SPONSORS BANKERS OF THE EVENING CIBC World Markets Corp and Michael P. Higgins ’92

B O A R D WA L K S P O N S O R S Liz and David Hirsh ’90 Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group LLC IVI International, Inc. Avison Young The Lightstone Group Cassin & Cassin LLP Morrison & Foerster LLP Douglas Management & Realty, Inc. Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Estreich & Company, Inc.

R A I L R OA D S P O N S O R First American Title Kennedy Wilson

PA R K P L A C E S P O N S O R S The Commercial Observer Korman Communities David Eyzenberg ’98 McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP

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INDIANA SPONSORS Arbor Commercial Mortgage, LLC Lawrence Palumbo ’07 Country Bank Paul Hastings Drucker Associates Triangle Services L&L Holding Company Ultimate Abstract of New York, Inc. Meister Seelig & Fein LLP

N E W Y O R K AV E N U E S P O N S O R S Appraisers & Planners Leitner Group, Inc. Benchmark Real Estate Group, LLC Meridian Capital Group, LLP Christopher Caltabiano ’06 Merritt Environmental Consulting Crowell & Moring, LLP Metropolitan New York Chapter of the Crown Properties Inc. Appraisal Institute Doral Bank Monmouth Real Estate Investment First Nationwide Title Agency, LLC Corporation George Comfort and Sons Partner Engineering and Science, Inc. G-Holdings REIS, Inc. Holliday Fenoglio Fowler Town Real Estate Key Bank Real Estate Capital Troutbrook Development

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106 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

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J UN E

C A L ENDA R 1

The American Institute of Architects hosts a discussion, “Beyond Buildings: Sustainable Business Practices.” The conversation will focus on the Triple Bottom Line principle, which espouses fi nancial, social, and environmental responsibility. Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place. 6 to 8 p.m. Fee: $10 for members, $25 for nonmembers. Information and registration: www.aiany.org.

The New York Building Congress hosts a breakfast with guest speakers Howard Glaser, director of state operations and senior policy advisor to Governor Andrew Cuomo, and former Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch. Hilton New York, 1335 Sixth Avenue. 8 a.m. Fee: $85 for members, $150 for nonmembers. Information and registration: www.buildingcongress.com.

The Real Estate Board of New York presents its Retail Deal of the Year awards at a cocktail party. 101 Club, 101 Park Avenue. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Fee: $50. Information and registration: www.rebny .com or email djones@rebny.com.

Professional Women in Construction hosts a social gathering to meet developers and building and property managers. Club 101, 101 Park Avenue. 5:30 to 8p.m. Fee: $80 for members, $95 for nonmembers. Information and registration: www.pwcusa.org.

2 3 4 5 6

The Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums hosts “Introduction to Co-op Board Responsibilities: An Intensive Seminar for New Directors,” featuring attorney Marc Luxemburg, senior partner at Gallet, Dreyer & Berkey, and property manager Gregory Carlson, founder of Carlson Realty Inc. The session will review all aspects of operating a cooperative property. Location to be announced. 6 to 9:30p.m. Fee: $125 for members, $200 for nonmembers. Information and registration: www.cnyc.com.

The American Institute of Architects hosts a discussion on low-rise, high-density housing in Greater New York, featuring architectural historian Richard Plunz, housing policy expert June Williamson and developer Paul Freitag. Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place. 6 to 8 p.m. Fee: free for members, $10 for nonmembers. Information and registration: www.aiany.org.

The Real Estate Lenders Association hosts a breakfast with guest speaker Michael Knott, managing director of Green Street Advisors. The Yale Club, 50 Vanderbilt Avenue. 8 to 9:30a.m. Fee: $50. Information and registration: www.rela.org.

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19&26

19 20

The Real Estate Board of New York presents its annual spring golf and tennis outing. North Shore Country Club, 500 Shore Road, Glen Head, N.Y. 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Fee: $425 for golf, $315 for tennis, $225 for lunch and dinner with no tournament participation, and $150 for dinner. Information and registration: www.rebny.com.

The American Institute of Architects hosts a seminar, “What to Expect When You’re Renovating,” featuring LEED-accredited architect Carol Gretter and construction attorney Melissa Billig, a partner at the law firm Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti. Gretter and Billig will discuss renovating an apartment in New York City from start to finish. Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place. 6 to 8 p.m. Fee: $35. Information and registration: www.aiany.org.

The New York Appraisal Institute presents “Hotel Valuation Seminar: Tools & Techniques for Real Estate Professionals,” featuring Stephen Rushmore Jr., president and CEO of HMV, a hospitality intelligence and consulting fi rm. Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 42 West 44th Street. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fee: $225. Information and registration: www. aimetrony.com.

21 22 23 24

Professional Women in Construction hosts a golf outing . Elmwood Country Club, White Plains, N.Y. 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Fees: $385 for golf package, $1,800 for foursome plus sign, $275 for sign only and $150 for dinner and cocktails.

25 26 27 28 29

The American Institute of Architects hosts “Cocktails & Conversation” featuring a discussion between architect Richard Weller and journalist Bill Menking of Architect’s Newspaper, and drinks made by bartender and author Toby Cecchini. Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Fee: $12.50 for members, $15 for nonmembers; one drink included.

30 108 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

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COMINGS & GOINGS Shah’s DelShah Capital forms lending arm

elShah Capital, a leading buyer of distressed properties in New York City, has formed DelShah Lending, the company announced last month. The new lending arm will provide mezzanine and bridge loans up to $50 million at an interest rate of 12 percent for bridge funds and a rate “in the high teens” for mezzanine funds; borrowers will receive financial advice as well, CEO Michael Shah told The Real Deal. “We’re looking to lend into special situations, messy situations where maybe there is a zoning problem or a partnership dispute … something going on that makes conventional financing harder to get,” Shah said. Since the downturn, DelShah Capital has emerged as a major player in scooping up debt on properties in or facing foreclosure. Acquisitions include 22 Renwick Street, 55 Gansevoort Street and 11 East 36th Street. Shah has borrowed more than $250 million to finance his acquisitions, which he told TRD made him feel comfortable getting into the lending business. “I’ve been one of the biggest buyers of non-performing debt, so we Michael Shah certainly know what to do when loans go bad,” he said. DelShah Lending has three employees and shares office space with DelShah Capital at 114 East 14th Street.

Khodadadian strikes out on his own again

ommercial broker Robert Khodadadian has left Eastern Consolidated to devote all his time to off-market deals with Skyline Properties, a company he founded before the recession. “Nobody wants to deal with exclusives,” Khodadadian told TRD last month. “I can’t count how many times a buyer has told me that when they see an email from a big company, they delete it.” Khodadadian began with Massey Knakal in 2004. During the boom, he struck out on his own. Skyline had two offices at its height — one in Great Neck and one on Park Avenue. Khodadadian let the company wind down when the financial crisis hit. Last year, he joined up with Adelaide Polsinelli when she defected from Marcus & Millichap to Eastern Consolidated. This spring, Khodadadian decided to re-invigorate Skyline to seize on the uptick in commercial sales spurred by low interest rates. “The market is going up, people are getting offers to flip,” he said, but they are more and more likely to do off-market, or “quiet,” transactions. Robert Khodadadian Being on his own allows him to move faster, which Khodadadian told TRD is increasingly important to both sellers and buyers. Right now, Khodadadian is working out of an executive suite rental at 400 Park Avenue but expects to move to bigger, more permanent space when he brings on employees — at a yet undetermined time. Plans call for a staff of eight to 10, besides himself. “It’s really not necessary at the moment,” he said.

AWH buys, rebrands resort operator

anhattan-based AWH Partners has bought and rebranded Lane Hospitality, a hotel and resort operator, as part of their expanding national hotel repositioning business. Russell Flicker, Jonathan Rosenfeld, Chad Cooley and Bernie Michaels have bought seven hospitality assets, including two in Florida, since launching AWH in 2010. The company also is looking at three or four New York City deals, Flicker told TRD last month. AWH does traditional repositionings as well as what Flicker described as “friendly foreclosure procedures.” In such a deal, the partners know the asset and are in contact with lenders and borrowers from the start, ensuring a smooth transition to new ownership, he said. Flicker and Rosenfeld worked at Blackstone, where Flicker ran a team focused on zoning and development. Left, Russell Flicker; right, Chad Cooley Cooley was a vice president with Related and Michaels was a founding partner of Michael, Levitt & Rubenstein. In the last two years, the company has invested more than $150 million in properties and managed redevelopment projects totaling more than $50 million, a AWH representative told TRD. AWH has rebranded Chicago-based Lane Hospitality as Spire Hospitality, Flicker said. “Lane was named for the Lane family,” he said, “so we want to give it a fresh face.” The Florida properties, the Boca Bridge Hotel in Boca Raton and another hotel that AWH has not yet identified, are part of the Lane rebranding. In New York, Spire is looking both at converting office buildings into hotels and acquiring boutique hotels, Flicker said. All stories by Guelda Voien

110 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

BROKER EXCHANGE Residential Bond New York Tom Rosado was hired from City Connections; Julie Stevens and Jessica Copland joined from AC Lawrence; Diane Saltiel moved from Rubicon Properties; Mia Miller, Angelo Stewart, Afrim Rexha and Rohan Khadka came from Miron Properties; and Tyler Jensen was hired from Halstead. All are agents. CityRealty Pete Culliney has been hired as director of research and analytics. He had been director of research at Real Capital Analytics. Douglas Elliman Reid Price, formerly of Town Residential, has joined the development marketing division as executive vice president. Joshua Ferris came on board as director of social media. He had been manager of interactive marketing at Citi Habitats. DSA Realty Stephen Love has joined as director of sales and associate broker. He had been senior managing director and associate broker at Citi Habitats. Alexis Miller joined as a sales and rental agent. She had been with Town. Town Cecilia Sullivan was hired from Caliber Associates, Afan Rafiq Kaiser and Mark Blackwell joined from Bond, Heather Cooper was with Halstead, Alise Shoemaker came from GILD, and Scotty Elyanow moved from Citi Habitats. All are representatives.

Commercial Cresa New York Robert Sattler was hired as vice president. He was a commercial real estate advisor at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Massey Knakal Realty Services David Simon joined as executive managing director of the New Jersey division. He had been chief operating officer for Colliers Houston & Co. Transwestern Ken Findley has joined as managing director. He had been managing director and director of medical leasing at ABS Real Estate Partners. The Vortex Group Scott Skorobohaty was hired as principal. He had been executive vice president at BankUnited. Joshua Stuart has joined as executive director. He had been an associate at Flinn Ferguson Corporate Real Estate. Compiled by Sanna Chu

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CPEX cleans up In an unusual business spinoff,

Brooklyn brokerage finds new way to mop up extra cash

erts said. The CPEX partners planned for Bespoke Hospitality Group to oversee luxury apartments owned by investors and foreign buyers living most of the time abroad. But it

Philip Santini oversees BHG Cleaning Services, CPEX’s latest venture.

wasn’t long before they realized there wasn’t much need for oversight since most buildings have a management company. What they learned, however, is that “everyone can afford cleaning,” Roberts said, so the company changed gears. Today, BHG Cleaning Services employs about 35 workers to keep apartments and small offices spotless. Its cus-

Lights, camera, profit! Homes on the market are

raking in big bucks from TV and movie location shoots

HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”

ven in today’s market, some listings will sit unsold, of course. A mansion in Yonkers with interiors dating to the 16th century, an architecturally unique Park Slope mansion asking $18 million — these homes may take a moment to find the perfect buyer. One way for the seller to pocket big bucks in the interim is to rent out the listed space to film and television shoots. “It really is a great opportunity for New Yorkers to make

money with their homes,” said Charlotte Wagster, a Douglas Elliman agent who has rented several listings to production companies. One of the locations: Greystone Court, a 14,000-square-foot Yonkers home where HBO filmed scenes for “Boardwalk Empire” and Beyonce taped her “Irreplaceable” music video. The castle’s owner, Kohle Yohannan, has made so much money from shoots that he’s no longer interested in selling. The Gothic Revival mansion, with its 18 bedrooms, went on the market three years ago for $4.95 million. “It’s so much equipment, so much wear and tear on your home, but he has been paid up to $40,000 a day,” Wagster told The Real Deal. This strategy, of course, carries huge risks as well as huge rewards: damage to the home, angry neighbors, missing the buyer who can only see the house on his two-day visit from Uruguay. Still, many owners are happy to put it all on the line, and not just for the money. Citi Habitats broker Stefania Cardi-

An ‘A’ on the sniff test Tribeca penthouse still

unsold, even though smells from McDonald’s are gone

he five-story condominium building at 8 Thomas Street in Tribeca doesn’t have golden arches, but it does have a tenuous tie-in to McDonald’s. In the last few years, the building’s residents have complained about the exhaust fumes from delivery trucks parked outside the fast-food restaurant, which is next door at 317 Broadway. The supposed smell has made it difficult for developer Anand Gajjar to sell the building’s duplex penthouse, where he lives with his wife, Rita. For three years, the couple has struggled to sell their home. They’ve already had two sets of brokers listing the property. Now the Gajjars are turning to Toni Haber and Steven Kramer of Douglas Elliman to take a crack at marketing their three-bedroom apartment. The 3,197-square-foot condo has an asking price of $5.399 million, Haber told The Real Deal. In 2010, Timothy McCarthy of Stribling & Associates

112 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

WE HE AR D

▼

hen is a real estate firm not a real estate firm? When it’s a cleaning service, too. Commercial brokerage CPEX has a solution to the ups and downs of the real estate market: diversify. That’s why the three-year-old Brooklyn-based firm launched Bespoke Hospitality Group 18 months ago, which now has spawned BHG Cleaning Services, a high-end housekeeping service that should keep the company’s coffers full even during a downturn. “We really did it for cash-flow purposes,” said Greg Roberts, who is the COO of CPEX, which is owned by Timothy King and Brian Leary. “[We’re] trying to diversify, because you never know what is going to happen in this world.” The trio has given control of the cleaning service to Philip Santini, a recent graduate of Johnson & Wales University’s MBA program. He oversees the day-to-day details, including a piece of chocolate on every pillow, from the company’s offices on the second floor of 81 Willoughby Street, where CPEX operates out of in Downtown Brooklyn. BHG Cleaning Services came about serendipitously, Rob-

tomers are individuals, developers, management companies and brokerages. Names on its client list include Aptsandlofts.com, the Corcoran Group, Douglas Elliman, Halstead Property and Citi Habitats. Roberts has even done a little spit and polish himself, though King and Leary haven’t rolled up their sleeves — at least not yet. “Sometimes I’ve shown up early and jumped in to help out, he said. “I take my jacket off, but not my suit.” About 80 percent of the scrub jobs are in Manhattan and the rest are in Brooklyn and Queens. Right now, Roberts estimates that the cleaning arm generates “maybe 10 or 15 percent” of CPEX’s revenue, “but it’s hard to tell because of the sales cycle. It’s really too early to tell.” And in the image-conscious world of commercial real estate, opening a down-and-dirty branch of business is a departure, to say the least. But CPEX’s philosophy, Roberts said, is that “we are an entrepreneurial company and always looking at other opportunities.” By Guelda Voien

The duplex penthouse at 8 Thomas Street seems a world away from Mickey D’s, even though the fast-food joint is just next door.

listed the penthouse for $3.995 million. Only a few months ago, in February, Laura Moss of Brown Harris Stevens stepped in and listed it for $5.995 million, StreetEasy shows. The three other units in the building have all sold.

nali is offering an airy Williamsburg loft for shoots because its owner wants exposure for her artwork. Not every space works for a shoot, though. Location scouts are looking for places that have open floor plans and good lighting — or where lights can be brought in. Plus, building elevators typically must be big enough to accommodate all kinds of production equipment. The kind of production matters, too. A full-length feature ponies up more cash but keeps the listing off the market longer. “If it’s a movie, they book the location months in advance … and so sellers don’t want to commit [usually],” said Barbara Wilson, a Halstead agent who rents spaces for shoots. With more shows being filmed in New York City — in no small part because of a big push from Mayor Michael Bloomberg — it is getting tougher and tougher to find spaces that owners, boards and location scouts can agree on, Wilson said. Still, when everyone can come together, a well-placed location can be a goldmine. “Say you make $10,000 a day,” ventured Wagster. “Think about how much you make in a month.” By Guelda Voien

The unit has a family room that can be converted into a fourth bedroom and a 1,000-square-foot rooftop terrace. An extra $300,000 will buy a wine cellar and game room in the building’s basement. Haber is developing a plan for selling the unit. “Each individual property needs a very specific way to market it,” Haber said. “The owner said it wasn’t getting a lot of activity.” Brown Harris Stevens , the previous brokerage, was not available to comment. Residents of the building, between Broadway and Church Street, started griping about Mickey D’s four years ago. Armed with a petition, they went to both the local community board and McDonald’s headquarters demanding that the fast-food chain relocate its unloading spot, which allegedly blocked access to other cars. Today, according to Rita Gajjar, the trucks rarely park out front, instead lining up along Broadway. She insisted she never smelled the odor. When TRD visited, the apartment indeed passed the sniff test: No stink whatsoever. By Mark Maurer www.TheRealDeal.com November 2012 105

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THE CLOSING

WITH KEN

HORN

Ken Horn is president of Alchemy Properties. Founded by Horn in 1990, the company has since developed or purchased almost 2 million square feet of real estate — worth some $1 billion — in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Horn and his partners Joel Breitkopf and Gerald Davis acquired the upper portions of the iconic Woolworth Building for $68 million last year, and are now transforming the top 30 floors of the tower into 40 luxury condos. Alchemy, which has completed projects such as the Isis condominium at 303 East 77th Street, is now also marketing the 35XV condo at 35 West 15th Street. What is your full name? Kenneth Stuart Horn. What’s your date of birth? Sept. 28, 1956. Where did you grow up? In Crown Heights and then in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Growing up in Brooklyn in the late 1960s and 1970s was wonderful. What was it like? On my street alone, there were probably 15 kids my age. We’d play football and baseball in the street. All the parents worked — my mother was a teacher and my dad was an accountant — but every single parent on the street looked after every kid. If I misbehaved, another parent would step in and drag [me] home by the ear. Does your family still live in Brooklyn? My dad still lives there. My mother developed brain cancer in her late thirties and passed away when she was 48. My brother passed away at 35 from AIDS. He was in the first wave of people who died in the city. How have their deaths affected you? I learned that no matter how bad things may get, at times there are always much worse scenarios. Where do you live now? I live in Scarsdale, in Westchester County, and I have a home in Manhattan, at the Isis. Have you tried to move your dad closer to you? He’s never moving. Tell me about your apartment at the Isis. [Interior designer] Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz designed it. We wanted something that was wildly lavish and colorful.… We [didn’t] want it to look like your grandmother’s house. How long have you been married to your wife, Marjorie? It will be 30 years in October. We got married in our early 20s. We had three kids by the time we were 31. How did you meet? I was an attorney at a law firm and she was a paralegal

114 June 2013 www.TheRealDeal.com

[there]. She claims she’d been flirting with me, but I was very proper and would not date anyone I worked with. Then she came to me and said, “I just got a new job. Now we can go out on a date.” Who is the boss at home? My wife is very good at moving me in the right direction, let’s put it that way. I never feel like I’m being bossed, but we always end up doing what Marjorie wants to do. Tell me about your kids. Alex is 26. He is working in commercial real estate. Katie is 24. She works at Alchemy in the PR department. My youngest, Jed, just graduated from college this month. How did you go from real estate attorney to developer? I had my law job for three years, at the firm now known as Bryan Cave, and then I started a gelato company. I didn’t like being a lawyer. Lawyers make the rules while other people play the game. I thought it would be more fun to play. Where did the gelato idea come from? I went to Italy with Margie and learned to make gelato, and then I raised the money I needed to open my first gelateria [named Gran Gelato] on Third Avenue and 90th Street. My father-in-law used to call me the Good Humor man. He was none too happy that his daughter married a Fifth Avenue lawyer who was now becoming an ice cream guy. Was the store successful? Within a year, we had two gelaterias in New York and two franchises in Long Island. We were written up as the best gelato in New York. I was just 26 years old.

Why did you leave the gelato business? Someone came to us and wanted to buy us. We got all our money back and we had a note [from the seller that said] that he was going to give us additional monies, but he vanished. He ran away with a 19-year-old scooper. What did you do next? I interviewed at a law firm and the partner interviewing me said, “You don’t want to be a lawyer, but I’ve got a client you’d be perfect for.” His client was Steve Shalom, owner of 2,300 apartments in Queens. I worked for him for five years. He taught me the business. I followed him around like a little chicken. When did you start Alchemy? In 1990, when the market was terrible. We began doing workouts for banks in defaulted co-op and condominium buildings. We would come in and figure out a way for the bank to recover its money. Once we recovered the money for the banks, we [had the option of buying] those units. Have you always wanted to own the Woolworth Building? No, but if someone said to me 15 years ago that I would be in a position to own the upper portion of the Woolworth Building, I would have said, “What, are you crazy?” We’ve had a lot of luck. My dad, who is retired, was taking a course on the architectural history of New York City and they were discussing the Woolworth Building. The professor kept saying, “The rumors are that someone is going to be going in and potentially making it residential.” Of course, my dad knew it was us, but he couldn’t say anything. By Katherine Clarke

PHOTOGRAPH FOR THE REAL DEAL BY MARC SCRIVO00 www.TheRealDeal.com July 2006

We define our neighborhoods as much as they define us.

80 Washington Place - th

5 BR, 7 BATH

WEB ID: 467066

$28.9 M

52 thomas street

3 BR, 3 BATH

WEB ID: 424179

$3.95 M

3 West 13th street

2 BR, 2 BATH

WEB ID: 309317

$2.995 M

55 Warren street - Ph*

4 BR, 4.5 BATH

WEB ID: 752972

99 Jane street

3 BR, 2 BATH

WEB ID: 668405

$14 M

$3.45 M

50 Franklin street

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WEB ID: 705099

$1.775 M

Over $180 Million in closed and contract signed deals in the last year. Robert Dvorin Senior Vice President, Associate Broker 110 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011 C: (917) 365-0040 O: (646) 998-7472 F: (212) 633-1005 rdvorin@townrealestate.com www.robertdvorin.com

TOWN Residential, LLC is a licensed real estate broker and proud member of REBNY. TOWN Residential LLC is a partnership with Thor Equities LLC. *Sponsor: 334 Canal Realty Corp. The complete offering terms are in an offering plan available from the sponsor. File Number: CD-090376