Who was ravishing in red? Who wore a velvet tux? Whose arm was around whom's?Well, REBNY's 115th annual gala was no Golden Globes, but as far as the real estate biz is concerned, it was simply the biggest night of the year. All the big shots were there, at... READ MORE»
New York is jam-packed with more tourists than ever. Fortunately, here comes 634 new hotel rooms to house them all in what's set to be the tallest inn in town. Technically the Mandarin Oriental inside the Time Warner Center is taller, but since that's a big ol' mixed-use project, with apartments, offices and even a mall, The Observer figures that doesn't... MORE >
1440 Broadway Still bruised from a pre-Christmas shopping trip down Macy's golden aisles? Surely you'll agree that the retailer needs more space. Not quite in time for the holiday season, the 150-year-old institution will take another 56,242 square... MORE >
100-104 Fifth Avenue When Apple launched its iAd application this past spring, people weren't exactly pitching tents on Fifth Avenue. But for a little tech company in Soho, this was, as Steve Jobs would say, the day that changed everything. Apple bought (and then absorbed) the entrepreneurial company Quattro Wireless to add an ad app to its growing iFamily. As an Advertising Age headline read, "Apple's iAd Not Game-Changing, but Will Move... MORE >
As upstart businesses go, the project management firm that real estate vet Ray Quartararo founded in the mid-1990s was the very picture of success. Nimble and detail-oriented, the firm, Quartararo & Associates, blossomed from a one-man operation to a group with 50 employees and a big footprint covering Hartford and Philadelphia-and nearly every city in... MORE >
315 Hudson Street Schoolchildren will be dismayed to learn that textbook publishers are going nowhere. AMSCO School Publications has renewed and restructured its lease in Jack Resnick & Sons' hip Hudson Street spot. The educational gurus have tacked another three years onto the 45 they've already spent in the building, renewing for 26,342 square feet on the fifth... MORE >
Since being named president of the New York tristate region for Cassidy Turley in August, real estate veteran Peter Hennessy has had his hands full-primarily with realigning the firm's services platform and its national entities under a single umbrella, but also with his continued role as a broker. Mr. Hennessy, 50, talked about settling into his new position, his expansion plans for Cassidy Turley and his own No. 1 New Year's... MORE >
825 Eighth Avenue Finally, some comfort food for the landlord at Worldwide Plaza. George Comfort & Sons has had no easy time plugging the holes at the former Macklowe megalith. But surely the best way to drown one's sorrows is with a bacon & brie baguette topped off with a chocolate peanut butter... MORE >
1133 Sixth Avenue The home of the national debt clock has a new tenant, a law firm to the financial services industry. Washington, D.C.-based BuckleySandler is moving its local home to 1133 Sixth Avenue. The lawyers have signed a 17,372-square-foot lease for nearly the entire 31st floor along with options for the remaining 5,000 feet, the New York Post... MORE >
222 West 44th Street "High fashion, low prices," is the slogan Times Square probably wishes it had thought of first. Discount retailer Daffy's, which actually pioneered the saying, if not the concept, will open a 28,000-square-foot store in the long-vacant former New York Times building. It's a sign that the Square's quest to become the destination of choice for Middle American tourists continues, The Wall Street Journal suggests. ... MORE >
Manhattan's commercial real estate brokers talk about vacancies the way newlyweds talk about divorce. It happens, just not to us. Our island market is thought to be sheltered from the forces of over-building that imperil other cities. But in October 2007, 3 million square feet of office space flooded that market in a single month. "The news has caused a low buzz of concern in the industry," wrote the New Jersey Record, "that this could... MORE >
Ever since the credit crisis hit and the real estate market collapsed, the news has been filled with disgraced developers--including in these very pages. Yet for every plucked chicken, there seems to be an equal number of phoenixes who, year after year, decade after decade, return from the construction graveyard to build again. (The Observer, in fact, tackled this very angle early last... MORE >
The folks at Silverstein Properties returned from a Roman holiday last month. The trip was for business, though the builders and architects who traveled to Carrara, Italy, no doubt derived some pleasure from seeing the lobby of 4 World Trade Center taking shape before their eyes. At a huge stonecutting facility in this Mediterranean town famous for its marble, the Silverstein team inspected the stones that will someday line the lobby of the Fumihiko Maki-designed... MORE >
A decade ago, Hudson Square was not even a neighborhood, just a printing district on the wane with Soho expats moving into many of the soaring brick loft buildings. It was an unglamorous cobblestone neighborhood north of the Holland Tunnel where garbage trucks and tour buses frequently... MORE >
With the Whitney really, truly, finally for sure moving downtown -- into a Vader-like new building, no less -- its old ominous digs will soon be forlorn and vacant. The Met has expressed interest in moving in in some capacity, but New York architecture critic Justin Davidson and design doyen Robert A.M. Stern have hatched a different... MORE >
One Madison Park has been listing for more than a year now, the 50-story tower perched over Madison Square serving as one of the most visible victims of the real estate boom on New York's skyline. Last month, one of the building's few buyers, Bruce Eichner, took a $40 million stake in the building to help bail it... MORE >
Born in Poland and raised and taught in New York City, Daniel Libeskind has blossomed into one of the country's most visible architects. From the Jewish Museum in Berlin to the launch earlier this year of his own housing line, "Villa Libeskind," the 64-year-old so-called starchitect has been involved in myriad projects across the world. None, however, have brought greater attention than his involvement in rebuilding the World Trade Center. Mr.... MORE >
As the year draws to a close, it is time to dole out holiday wishes for those who are either directly or indirectly related (or in some cases not related at all) to the commercial real estate business. In a year in which politics has been such a central theme, why not then begin with taking stock of how our elected officials have... MORE >
Aided by an increasingly diverse pool of active investors, rapidly improving credit conditions and stabilizing property fundamentals, commercial real estate investment trends in the nation's largest markets developed significant momentum over the course of... MORE >
Some people (certainly no one at The Observer -- Go G-Men!) consider Emmitt Smith to be one of the best running backs of all-time. So far, his success as a developer has been less impressive, as he continues to run circles around a development site in... MORE >
Even for an industry in which brokers are rewarded for patience and repeat business is coveted above all else, the courtship between Vincent Tuminelli and Marubeni America stands out. Already in his prime as a broker, Mr. Tuminelli engaged the trading firm as a tenant rep for Studley 12 years ago. But what began as a series of widely spaced transactions for one of Japan's so-called "Three M's" blossomed into a relationship that, in 2008... MORE >
September 28, 2010
William Macklowe rubbed the bridge of his nose and said he was suffering from a sinus headache. It was the first sign of human frailty he'd allowed... READ MORE »
February 03, 2011
100 Park AvenuePerhaps nobody has told Wells Fargo that the United States-and the rest of the world-has been in the midst of an economic downturn. Indeed, during the past... READ MORE »
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