The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Bloomberg, Turner Construction executives to be charged in overbilling scheme

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 03:34 PM PST

More than a dozen executives at Bloomberg L.P., Turner Construction and their subcontracting companies are accused of running a scheme that overcharged Bloomberg for renovation work by tens of millions of dollars. Anthony Guzzone, the former global head of construction at Bloomberg, and two former Turner executives are expected to be indicted Tuesday on fraud, theft and bribery charges, the New York Times reported. As part of the scheme, company executives and subcontractors allegedly agreed […]

Carlyle Group pays record price for Queens rental tower, scores $180M loan

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 03:15 PM PST

A fund managed by the Carlyle Group on Monday closed on the purchase of 1 QPS Tower for $284 million, making it the most expensive acquisition of a rental building in Queens’ history. Carlyle financed the purchase of the 45-story tower at 42-20 24th St with a $179.8 million loan from MetLife Real Estate Lending, according to property records filed Monday. The loan, which will retire a previous debt package provided by Deutsche Bank to […]

CRE scorecard: Manhattan office leasing through October 2018

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 02:45 PM PST

OFFICE LEASING IN MANHATTAN Midtown office leasing fell 20 percent in October compared to September, totaling 1.4 million square feet. This was just 1 percent under the five-year monthly average. The availability rate dropped by 0.2 percentage points, to 10.9 percent. The average asking rent retreated in October, to $78.03 per square foot. The largest deal in Midtown was inked by online listings website Zillow, which leased 127,520 square feet at 1250 Broadway. Leasing activity […]

It’s official: Brookfield owns Forest City

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 02:30 PM PST

Nearly 100 years after the company was founded as a family-owned lumber business, Forest City Realty Trust — owner of millions of square feet of real estate across the country — has once again gone private. Brookfield Asset Management officially closed on its $6.8 billion purchase of the real estate investment trust on Friday. In New York City, Brookfield will be taking over 4.8 million square feet of office space from Forest City, and more […]

Arel Capital exec is the latest to close on a 220 CPS pad

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 02:00 PM PST

A real estate investment executive whose firm has made plays in New York City is the latest to close on a unit at 220 Central Park South. Richard Leibovitch, a founding partner at Arel Capital, closed on a $26.2 million apartment at Vornado Realty Trust’s luxury supertall, according to records filed with the city’s Department of Finance on Monday. Leibovitch bought the unit through an LLC, records show. He declined to comment on the transaction. […]

Coca-Cola looks to sell Fifth Ave building

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:45 PM PST

Coca-Cola is looking to sell its eponymous building on Fifth Avenue. The soft drink maker has put the 18-story, 354,000-square-foot building it owns at the corner of 55th Street on the market, Bloomberg News reported. Coca-Cola, which inherited the building at 711 Fifth Avenue in 1983 with its purchase of Columbia Pictures “has determined that it does not need to retain its investment in the building to support its activities in New York,” according to […]

Brooklyn Heights townhouse joins elite club with $12M sale

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:17 PM PST

The sellers of a Civil War-era Brooklyn Heights townhouse hoped to smash a sales record when they listed their home for $16 million in 2014. The property fell short of that, but still snagged a price tag few other homes in the borough have topped. The single-family townhouse at 192 Columbia Heights closed on Monday for $11.75 million, according to records filed with New York City’s Department of Finance. The sellers are former Granite Broadcasting […]

Former Airbnb exec snags Cobble Hill townhouse for $4.6M

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:02 PM PST

A former Airbnb exec just snatched up a Cobble Hill townhome near his new gig. Shaun Stewart, former global head of Airbnb’s vacation rental business, and his wife, Katie Krawiec Stewart, paid a discounted price of $4.6 million for the three-story home, according to a city filing. The townhouse, located at 120 Congress Street, was listed in February for about $5.5 million. After his work at Airbnb, Stewart became a director in Google’s self-driving cars […]

Allianz’s Gary Phillips is heading to Eastdil

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 12:40 PM PST

Gary Phillips, head of acquisitions at Allianz Real Estate of America, is leaving the company and moving to Eastdil Secured, where he will serve as managing director for capital markets and real estate sales at the firm’s New York office, according to multiple industry sources. Phillips had been with Allianz since 2011 and has also worked at Clarion Partners and Deutsche Bank. He recently helped lead a deal at Allianz to sell a 49 percent […]

Multifamily investor Iris Holdings buys Maimonides’ Brooklyn portfolio for $68M

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 12:35 PM PST

Maimonides Medical Center has sold eight of its buildings in Borough Park to Marc Blumenfrucht Iris Holdings for about $68 million, according to property records. TPG Real Estate Finance Trust provided $67.5 million in financing for Iris Holdings for the deal. The properties are addressed at 864 49th Street, 983 and 1005 46th Street, 5001 10th Avenue, 1016 50th Street and 902, 914 and 926 47th Street. They are mostly vacant multifamily buildings with 295 […]

Pearl Diner in FiDi to be replaced with 21-story hotel

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 12:00 PM PST

One of the Financial District’s last standalone diners may soon be no more. A new 21-floor hotel is set to take the place of the Pearl Diner at 212 Pearl Street, according to documents filed with the Department of Buildings on Friday. George Drallios of Chaon LLC is the developer. Drallios, a registered architect, founded the Bi2em Design Architecture consultancy in 2005 and has been involved in projects in the U.S., the Caribbean and Russia […]

Long Island Cheat Sheet: RXR sells Woodbury office complex for $37M, Nassau and Suffolk home sales flatten … & more

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 11:30 AM PST

RXR Realty sells Woodbury office complex for $37.4M The Feil Organization, a Manhattan-based and family-owned real estate development firm, has agreed to pay $37.4 million to buy a six-building office complex in Woodbury from RXR Realty, according to Long Island Business News. The sale of the properties, which total 192,916 square feet of space, is part of a recently-adopted strategy by RXR to shed its suburban office properties. RXR and an affiliate, Australia-based Reckson New York […]

Adtech company leaving 33 Whitehall for 42K sf at Brookfield Place

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 11:00 AM PST

Digital marketing company Fluent, Inc., fresh off a spin-off from its parent company, is growing into a new office in the Financial District. The eight-year-old company signed a sublease for just shy of 42,000 square feet with high-frequency trading firm Virtu Financial at 300 Vesey Street at Brookfield Place, representatives from Fluent told The Real Deal. The spinoff in March gave Fluent access to cash it didn’t have before to help fuel its growth. Since […]

Here are the week’s top luxury sales

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 10:30 AM PST

Each week, The Real Deal and CityRealty look back at Manhattan’s priciest apartment sales.

Sales slump: nearly 85% of luxury listings trade at a discount

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 10:00 AM PST

The downturn hasn’t been kind to the luxury market. And there’s new data to put it into perspective: 84 percent of high-end homes have sold at a discount. The sales number account for the first three quarters of the year, the New York Times reported citing data from StreetEasy. The figure is up from 65 percent during the boom in 2015. The median price cut was unchanged at $500,000. The trend is part of a […]

The New York Wheel is getting sold for parts at auction

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 09:30 AM PST

Discarded parts from the failed New York Wheel project will get put up for auction next month in Delaware. Parts going up for sale will include the wheel’s legs valued at $9.2 million, its drive towers valued at $3.3 million, its cable spokes valued at $4.4 million, its frame braces valued at $3.4 million and 36 capsules valued at $23 million, according to the New York Post. The project’s 9,147 tons of steel might also […]

Manhattan’s luxe resi market off to a slow start in December: Olshan

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 09:00 AM PST

Manhattan’s luxury residential market saw its slowest start to December since 2015, with just 18 contracts signed on homes $4 million and up last week, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly market report. That figure was down from 30 contracts inked during the same week in 2017 and 2016. Last week’s priciest contract went to a condominium at the Plaza Hotel with an asking price of $23.5 million. Unit 603/605 at 1 Central Park South spans […]

A&E buys UWS complex for $220M

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 08:30 AM PST

A&E Real Estate Holdings has spent $220 million to buy Glenn Gardens on the Upper West Side. The company bought the residential complex at 175 West 87th Street from a Sherwood Guernsey-led partnership, according to Commercial Observer. The property consists of two buildings with 266 residential units. This is the first time ownership has changed since 1974, when Glenn Gardens was built. The building includes one 32-story residential tower, one five-story walk-up, a parking garage […]

The Brooklyn luxury market just finished up a very slow week

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 08:00 AM PST

There were just seven contracts signed in the Brooklyn luxury market last week, split between five townhouses and two condos. The properties sold for about $24.1 million overall and went for an average price of roughly $3.5 million, according to the latest report from Stribling & Associates. The firm defines the borough’s luxury market as all homes priced at $2 million or higher. The figures were down from the week before, when the market saw […]

Lalezarian Properties snags Murray Hill development site for $80M

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 07:30 AM PST

Kevin Lalezarian bought a development site at the corner of 34th Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill for nearly $80 million. Lalezarian, head of the family-owned Lalezarian Properties based in New Hyde Park, paid $79.5 million to purchase the five parcels from the Riese Organization, property records show. Representatives for Lalezarian and Riese were not immediately available for comment. The five properties had addresses at 207-211 East 34th Street and 507-511 Third Avenue. A […]

Announcing TRD’s Future City 2019 event

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 07:00 AM PST

We’re thrilled to announce The Real Deal’s Future City 2019, an exclusive two-day opportunity for a group of 200 C-level executives in the fields of development, tech, construction, law, design and finance to network with and learn from the top minds and biggest dealmakers in the country. The event will take place Jan. 27-29, 2019 at the brand-new Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas. The industry is changing at a faster pace than ever before […]

Former City Council staffer helping JPMorgan on new HQ approvals

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 06:30 AM PST

JPMorgan’s got an ace up its sleeve when it comes to getting city approvals for its new Midtown headquarters. The bank earlier this year hired Ramon Martinez, a veteran inside the halls of the City Council who is expected to play a role in helping the company secure permission to shrink the amount of public space required for its new Park Avenue office, Crain’s reported. Martinez spent more than a decade at the Council, including […]

AllianceBernstein checking out Tishman Speyer’s Spiral

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 06:00 AM PST

AllianceBernstein, which is relocating its headquarters to Nashville, is considering moving its New York offices to Tishman Speyer’s Hudson Yards development. The financial giant is considering space at the Related Companies’ 50 Hudson Yards and Tishman’s The Spiral – the latter of which seems it may get the go-ahead, the New York Post reported. “It’s about the future of its workplace and its image,” one person who is familiar with the company’s search told the […]

Time Warner Center to be renamed for Deutsche Bank

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 05:30 AM PST

The Time Warner Center will be renamed for Deutsche Bank, which is leasing more than 1 million square feet at the complex. The property will be renamed the Deutsche Bank Center, Commercial Observer reported. The German financial giant is taking 1.1 million square feet at the complex for 25 years. Deutsche Bank, currently headquartered at 60 Wall Street, plans to move to the complex in the third quarter of 2021. The bank, one of the […]

PHOTOS: Inside Moinian’s 2018 holiday bash

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 05:00 AM PST

The Moinian Group held its annual holiday bash Thursday night at CNVS on Manhattan’s rapidly growing Far West Side. The party took place in a spacious white room at 635 West 42nd Street and was filled with high profile guests and Moinian executives including CEO Joseph Moinian and vice president for acquisitions and finance Michael Zarifpoor. An eight-piece band entertained the attendees, and tables filled with food ranging from sushi to dumplings to burgers spanned […]

Can NAR embrace technology without rendering agents obsolete?

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 04:30 AM PST

It was summer 2017 when Bob Goldberg ascended the stage at the Sheraton Grand Chicago. With Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” playing in the background, Goldberg was introduced as the new “boss” of real estate’s most powerful trade association. The lifelong Springsteen fan — he’s seen the Boss in concert nearly 200 times — clutched a red electric guitar and seemed to signal the beginning of a new era at the 110-year-old National Association of Realtors […]

L&L MAG’s first development will be a 460-unit resi building in Chelsea

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 04:00 AM PST

UPDATED, 10:38 a.m., Dec. 10: MaryAnne Gilmartin’s L&L MAG has inked a 99-year ground lease for Edison Properties’ 241 West 28th Street for about $7 million per year with gradual increases, according to sources familiar with the deal. This puts the total value of the deal in the range of $150 to $170 million, depending on the cap rate. L&L is planning to build a 22-story, 460-unit residential project on the lot that will span roughly 372,000 […]