The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

The Bronx saw more than $2B in investment sales last year

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 03:00 PM PST

The investment sales market in the Bronx held steady in 2018, with multifamily portfolio trades and development site sales accounting for more than half of the year’s volume. Overall, the borough saw $2.05 billion of activity across 312 deals and 511 buildings, according to a new report from Ariel Property Advisors. This was an 8 percent decrease in dollar volume, a 1 percent increase in deal volume and a 12 percent increase in building volume […]

Mark your calendars: These are NYC’s top real estate events next week

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 02:30 PM PST

This week will feature some real estate events worth checking out! On Feb. 13, the Cornell Real Estate Council is holding an event on Cutting Edge Innovation in Real Estate at the Law Offices of Duval and Stachenfeld, 555 Madison Avenue. Russ Bernard, founder and managing principal of Westport Capital Partners, is the guest speaker at the event. Also on Feb. 13, AnySizeDeals is holding its ASDAiRE Conference at the Williamsburg Hotel, 96 Wythe Avenue. […]

These were the 10 largest Manhattan real estate loans in January

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 02:00 PM PST

The top 10 Manhattan loans recorded in January totaled just over $2.9 billion, staying more or less flat for the third straight month. Brookfield Asset Management was involved in the top two loans, first as a borrower for its refinancing of 666 Fifth Avenue, and then as a lender for Rockpoint’s acquisition of One Dag Hammarskjöld. 1. Kushner & Brookfield – $750 million Brookfield Asset Management secured a $750 million loan for its renovation and […]

Ventas investing $1.5B into university research facilities, starting with Arizona State

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 01:30 PM PST

Ventas will invest $1.5 billion in research and innovation facilities at colleges throughout the country, starting with a $77 million project at Arizona State University. The Chicago-based REIT is extending its partnership with college research facility developers Wexford Science & Technology with plans for about 10 new projects, Ventas executives announced during an earnings call Friday. The partnership and sizable investment will ensure Ventas and Wexford remain leaders in the university research development market, said […]

Playboy Club’s most intimate details laid bare in new lawsuit

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 01:00 PM PST

One of the partners at Manhattan’s Playboy Club is angling for a better peek at the venture’s books. The Bunny-themed restaurant and the hotel it’s housed in are embroiled in a lawsuit filed by their minority investor, who wants information about the property’s finances. Mikhail Gurevich’s Dominion Capital filed the complaint against Merchants Hospitality Inc. Wednesday in New York County Supreme Court, claiming it has been shut out of major financial and management decisions. Merchants […]

CRE scorecard: New York City investment sales through December 2018

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 12:30 PM PST

INVESTMENT SALES IN MANHATTAN AND BROOKLYN Manhattan investment sales ended 2018 on a high note, exceeding $4.4 billion in deals recorded in December, nearly double the 12-month average. The top sale was for an 80 percent stake in five Manhattan properties, including 1 Morningside Drive, that AvalonBay Communities sold to Invesco for $607 million. Brooklyn saw $801 million in sales recorded in December, somewhat above average for the year and an 80 percent increase from […]

Level One planning its biggest project yet in Boerum Hill

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 12:00 PM PST

Level One Holdings is planning a 102-unit mixed-use building in Boerum Hill, which would be the largest building in the firm’s portfolio. The project at 58 Saint Mark’s Place would span 133,408 square feet, split between 124,767 square feet of residential space and 8,274 square feet of retail space, according to PincusCo. The company filed plans to demolish several buildings on the parcel last July. Shlomi Avdoo and Robert Loheit, co-founders of Level One, assembled […]

Silverstein tests Tel Aviv’s shaky bond market with $50M raise

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 11:30 AM PST

With American real estate bonds in meltdown in Israel since November, Silverstein Properties has tested the waters at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange once again. Larry Silverstein’s firm raised more than $50 million (or 185 Israeli shekels) on Wednesday, Commercial Observer reported. Silverstein’s expansion of its Series-A bond was massively oversubscribed, with $130 million worth of institutional bids coming in for an offer of $51 million, according to CO. The strong showing could be an […]

Servcorp signs deal at 667 Madison

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 11:00 AM PST

Servcorp, an Australia-based flexible office space firm, has locked in a management agreement at 667 Madison Avenue, the first such arrangement for a company that typically takes space through conventional leases. The firm will take over 36,000 square feet on the fourth and fifth floors of the building owned by the Hartz Group, according to Commercial Observer. About 15 percent of the space is used for coworking. The company, however, has been wary of the […]

Paramount sells 670 Broadway for more than $130M

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 10:30 AM PST

Paramount Group’s on-again, off-again effort to sell 670 Broadway has finally ended in a deal. The German company Cara Investment GMBH paid $130.5 million for the property, according to records filed with the city. The real estate investment trust spent several months in 2017 trying to sell the property for about $160 million, and brought the building back to market last year. Paramount bought the property, which is also known as 0 Bond Street, back […]

News Corp. has “undiminished” optimism about the housing market amid Move’s revenue growth

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 10:00 AM PST

Despite the housing market slowdown, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. earnings got a boost from the growth of its real estate services in the second quarter. Revenues for the digital real estate services segment reached $311 million, a 7 percent increase from the same time last year. That growth was driven in part by Move Inc., which operates Realtor.com, the company said. In the second quarter, Move’s revenues climbed 11 percent to $122 million from $110 […]

PNC lends art storage company $57M for Bushwick buy

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 09:20 AM PST

PNC Bank is helping Steven Guttman’s fine art storage company with its acquisition and renovation of a Brooklyn warehouse. The lender provided about $57.4 million to Uovo to finance its purchase and renovation of 105 Evergreen Avenue in Bushwick, according to a filing recorded with the city’s finance department. Steve Novenstein, Uovo’s CEO, declined to comment on the terms of the financing. The debt closed in December, around the time Uovo purchased the two-story, roughly […]

Amazon may pull out of LIC campus amid opposition: report

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 08:49 AM PST

Amazon is considering pulling out of a deal for a new campus in Long Island City, which is set to bring 25,000 jobs to New York and put the area’s real estate market into overdrive, but was heavily criticized as a giveaway to the tech giant because of its billions in tax breaks. Since Amazon is yet to lease or purchase office space for the project, it would be able to withdraw, the Washington Post […]

Soho landlords are joining forces to win the neighborhood’s rezoning fight

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 08:30 AM PST

Both sides in the fight over a rezoning of Soho are gearing up for battle. A group of major Soho landlords and developers have formed an advocacy organization to push rezoning in Soho and Noho. The new group, called the “Fix Soho Noho Coalition,” includes big league property owners Vornado Realty Trust, Himmel + Meringoff, Crown Acquisitions and Olmstead Properties, according to Crain’s. The landlords and developers are gearing up for a potentially explosive political […]

PHOTOS: Lunching with VIPs at TRD’s inaugural Future City event

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 08:00 AM PST

Last week, nearly 200 CEOs from around the industry joined The Real Deal to rub elbows and discuss some of the biggest issues in the business at our first-ever Future City event at Baha Mar in the Bahamas. Real estate’s top brass gathered for a VIP lunch hosted by TRD publisher Amir Korangy and editor-in-chief Stuart Elliott. Check out the slideshow above to catch a glimpse of the event. All photos by Erin Hudson

WeWork buys tech firm to track and record movements in workplaces

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 07:30 AM PST

WeWork’s chief product officer said they’re aiming for a “Google analytics for space,” but their new tech acquisition raises questions about privacy in the workplace. The company just bought Euclid, a platform that monitors people’s movement in physical space, for an undisclosed sum, according to TechCrunch. The purchase comes just months after WeWork, recently valued at $47 billion, spent $100 million in cash for Teem, an office management startup. The new data platform offers “workplace […]

Latest credit breach exposes mortgage data for thousands of borrowers

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 07:00 AM PST

A large breach of mortgage data that has exposed the personal financial information of tens of thousands of borrowers raises key consumer questions: What happens to all those disclosures we make after we apply for and obtain a home loan — our tax returns, Social Security numbers, credit card accounts, bank-account numbers and detailed summaries of our assets? Where does it all go after the closing? If your mortgage or servicing rights subsequently are sold […]

Brooklyn smoked fish company plans to build 500K sf in office space above factory

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 06:31 AM PST

How much would you pay to rent office space above a smoked fish factory? That potentially pungent option will be an option for businesses looking for commercial space on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint now that major smoked fish maker Acme Smoked Fish is expanding its footprint. The company plans to develop a 583,000-square-foot, multistory project with Philadelphia-based developer Rubenstein Partners, according to the Wall Street Journal. The site would include a 80,000-square-foot manufacturing […]

Trouble at the top of SoftBank may threaten its pricey investments

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 06:00 AM PST

It’s not easy to share the crown. Strained personal relations between Marcelo Claure, SoftBank’s chief operating officer, and Rajeev Misra, who handles SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, are impacting business, according to Bloomberg. Claure became COO in May, and was tasked with fostering collaboration between SoftBank’s different portfolio companies, which include the We Company, Uber, and other startups. But problems have emerged between Claure and Misra, who manages the Vision Fund, sources told Bloomberg. On […]

National Cheat Sheet: Moody’s launches CRE data portal, Trump’s childhood home hits the market … & more

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 05:30 AM PST

Moody’s new CRE data portal to compete with CoStar The Real Deal has had its eyes on a potential showdown that became a reality this week when Moody’s Analytics officially made public its plans to give real estate data behemoth CoStar Group a run for its money. The financial services information giant has launched its commercial real estate data portal, known as the REIS Network, through which users will be able to access data from firms like CompStak and […]

Judge approves Lampert’s $5.2B Sears takeover bid

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 05:00 AM PST

A U.S. bankruptcy judge approved Sears Chairman Edward Lampert’s $5.2 billion takeover bid of the company, saving off liquidation of the troubled retailer and hundreds of stores. The ruling means that thousands of jobs have been saved and 425 stores will remain open for now, according to Reuters. Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Southern District Court in White Plains, N.Y, approved the sale on Thursday after overruling objections from Sears’ creditors. Lampert stepped down […]

Power lunch: Construction big shots talk about scandals, big projects and union clout

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 04:30 AM PST

Five construction professionals recently sat down for The Real Deal’s inaugural “Power lunch” feature and discussed a scandal surrounding one of their own. That morning, coincidentally, former executives at Turner Construction, Bloomberg LP and their subcontractors were indicted in a bid-rigging and bribery scheme that allegedly netted them tens of millions of dollars by overcharging for renovation work at Bloomberg’s Manhattan offices. But the group that gathered later that day in mid-December — Brookfield Properties’ […]

Sales volume in Northern Manhattan hit 7-year low in 2018

Posted: 08 Feb 2019 04:00 AM PST

Dollar volume was up, but sales volume hit a seven-year low in Northern Manhattan’s investment sales market last year, according to a report from Ariel Property Advisors. The section of Manhattan above 96th Street on the east side and 110th Street on the west side saw $2.06 billion worth of sales across 223 deals and 379 buildings. This was an 8 percent increase in dollar volume and a 21 percent increase in building volume compared […]