20
NYC vs. N.J. in fight for office tenants
38
Cutting broker incentives in half
64
NYC developers buy up Brazil
66
Kevin Roche: A career in review
104
Don Peebles takes on NYC
THEREALDEAL
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Brookfield’s grand NYC plan
West Side mega-project is just the start for Canadian firm BY ADAM PINCUS If Brookfield isn’t keeping its rivals up at night, it should be. The historically quiet firm has an unSPECIAL REPORT precedented amount of NYC office space on the market (more than any other landlord) and a massive level of activity in the works. A Manhattan mega-project and possible bid to convert Stuy Town to condos are just the start.
N EW YO R K R E A L E S T A T E N E W S
Vol. 10 No. 2 February 2012 $3.00
The luxurylist A neighborhood ranking of Manhattan brokers on $5M-plus deals From left to right: Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Hervé Senequier and Leonard Steinberg, the top luxury brokers in Chelsea, and Brown Harris Stevens’ Kathy Sloane, who made the top brokers list on the Upper East Side and in Midtown East.
FACT The 10 largest firms reported to be in the market for Manhattan office space are hunting for as much as 11.3 million square feet in total. See page 24.
AT A GLANCE The mighty middle Demand for luxury homes has continued to increase in 2012, and sales of starter apartments have remained sluggish. But the middle of the Manhattan market — properties priced in the $1 million range — finally seems to be waking up. See page 16.
See story on page 56
Who will replace Bloomberg?
NYC’s mayoral candidates
NYC investors sniff out deals in Europe
BY JAKE MOONEY A long line of candidates is waiting in the wings to move into Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s City Hall office once his term is up. This month, TRD looked at each of them and what they would mean for the NYC real estate industry.
As Europe’s economic uncertainty persists, investors, many with ties to NYC, have started searching the continent for deals. Barry Sternlicht, Howard Michaels and the Blackstone Group are all looking for bargains there. See page 48.
and their real estate ties
See story on page 28
Co-op shareholders feel the squeeze
Astor master
Minskoff goes after tenants for Astor Place spec tower
BY ADAM PIORE Developer Edward Minskoff made headlines when he locked up a giant construction loan for a rare spec office tower on Astor Place. Now he’s turning his attention to nailing down tenants. See story on page 40
BY LEIGH KAMPING-CARDER It’s always difficult to rank the city’s top residential agents, given the lack of public information about their deals. But for the FEATURE STORY first time, TRD has compiled a ranking of luxury sellers’ agents based on closed sales, rather than listings. And we’ve drilled down even further, discovering who reigned supreme
in different corners of Manhattan when it came to resales of $5 million and up in the past year. For most of the brokers, the key to dominating a neighborhood was securing one mammoth sale. But a select few — Serena Boardman and John Burger among them — cornered the market on both volume and big-ticket deals.
Many Manhattan co-op owners who didn’t want to sell during the downturn got board permission to rent out their homes instead. But now, many of those agreements are expiring, squeezing owners and boards. See page 50.
See story on page 43
The rise of Checking in on the ’burbs Rapid Realty A breakdown of the priciest residential sales in Franchise firm grows fast, but not without its critics
Ian Schrager on getting shy at cocktail parties See page 106.
Fairfield, Westchester, Bergen and Nassau
BY KATHERINE CLARKE Since the residential brokerage Rapid Realty started franchising in 2009, it’s mushroomed to nearly 800 agents in some 50 NYC locations. Now, the firm is looking to expand beyond the city and even the country. But some criticize the firm’s “assembly-line” approach to doing rental deals.
BY PETER KIEFER It’s a question many New Yorkers ask themselves at some point: Buy an apartment in the city, or spend the same amount on a spacious house in the suburbs? When choosing the latter, Priciest sale by county, 2011 New Yorkers often flock to a few affluent counties outside the city. This Fairfield: $39.5M (Greenwich) month, TRD checked in on these arNassau: $15.9M (Old Westbury) eas to see how their residential markets are holding up and to determine Westchester: $11.6M (Rye) their priciest sales of 2011 — some of Bergen: $10M (Saddle River) which involved celebrity owners like hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.
See story on page 30
See story on page 60
The REBNY churn A first-ever analysis of REBNY membership to see who joined (and who dropped out) this year. See page 34.
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TOP BROKER AND SCHRAGER PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARC SCRIVO; CO-OP ILLUSTRATION BY PETER BONO