The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

JPMorgan Chase closes on $115M buy of Bank of China’s former HQ

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 02:15 PM PDT

JPMorgan Chase closed on its $115 million purchase of 410 Madison Avenue, the former U.S. headquarters for Bank of China, according to public records. Negotiations over the purchase were first reported more than a year ago, after the U.S. bank had moved some of its employees into the seven-story Midtown East building. The closing price is $15 million more than estimated when negotiations began. Bank of China owned and occupied the 58,000 square-foot building for

BD Hotels defaults on Watson Hotel mortgage

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 01:45 PM PDT

The cracks are starting to show in New York City’s hotel market. Richard Born and Ira Drukier’s BD Hotels — the largest boutique hotel company in the city — has stopped making payments on their mortgage on the 600-room Watson Hotel on Manhattan’s West Side, sources told The Real Deal. Now, HSBC, which provided BD Hotels with a $42.5 million loan in 2011 to finance its leasehold on the hotel at 440 West 57th Street,

NYC to rely on complaints to enforce sidewalk dining rules

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 01:00 PM PDT

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that the city was “waiving all the rules” regarding sidewalk dining — but it’s a little more complicated than that. “We just said, whatever the rules were in the past, we’re waiving all the rules,” de Blasio said at a virtual conference of mayors. “All you have to do is tell us you want to do it and you’re in. You can use the sidewalks or part of the

32BJ, landlords agree to retirement incentives for some employees at higher Covid-19 risk

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 12:15 PM PDT

As offices gradually reopen, landlords and the city’s buildings services union are offering thousands of employees extra benefits to retire rather than risk exposure to Covid-19 at work. The Realty Advisory Board of Labor Relations and 32BJ SEIU created an incentive program for union members who are older than 62 and have 15 years of service credit in the pension program, representatives for the organizations told The Real Deal. Participating employees will receive a one-time

“Call me boss”: How Carmel Partners got ensnared in a major political corruption case

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 11:50 AM PDT

When the FBI went public last year with its probe of Los Angeles City Council member Jose Huizar, the focus was Huizar’s illicit ties with real estate developers based in China. But a 116-page affidavit made public yesterday after FBI agents arrested Huizar claims the former chair of the Planning Land Use and Management Committee may have also shook down Carmel Partners, a San Francisco-headquartered real estate investment firm. Carmel Partners is linked to giving

Real estate bigwigs on their minimum wage days

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 11:05 AM PDT

It’s hard to forget a first job, whether it was scooping ice cream, waiting tables or selling knives door-to-door. But it’s funny to think that the CEOs, developers and top industry brokers — who these days have hundreds of employees under their purview and salaries that put them in the uppermost stratosphere of earners — once made minimum wage. Last year, The Real Deal brought you the first edition of this annual series, in which

Blackstone nears $1.4B deal with HPP to build out production studios

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 10:00 AM PDT

Blackstone Group and Hudson Pacific Properties are deep in talks to form a partnership to develop production studios in Los Angeles. Valued at $1.4 billion, the deal would build out HPP’s extensive studio and sound stage portfolio, according to the Wall Street Journal. A deal could be struck in days. HPP owns three studio lots and 36 soundstages totaling 1.2 million square feet of space across 41 acres. The Victor Coleman-led firm became the largest

The jumbo loan market crashed with Covid. But it’s slowly regaining strength

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 09:45 AM PDT

Jumbo loans, a favorite tool of lenders to finance high-end homes for wealthy buyers, sunk like a stone as coronavirus began impacting the economy starting in March. But there are signs that jumbo loans are beginning to rebound. Lenders shied away from those loans as a disproportionate number have entered forbearance agreements — 11.8 percent, compared to just 8.7 percent for all mortgages, the Wall Street Journal reported. Jumbos, which are not eligible for federal

L+M, Lendlease snag $250M loan for UWS tower

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 09:00 AM PDT

Ron Moelis’ L+M Development Partners and Lendlease are moving forward with a 42-story tower in Morningside Heights. The joint venture scored a $250 million construction financing package from Barings for a mixed-use development at Columbia University-affiliated Union Theological Seminary, Commercial Observer reported. The tower at 100 Claremont Avenue will be attached to the seminary, which sold the air rights to L+M in 2018. JLL’s Christopher Peck and Scott Aiese brokered the financing for L+M and

“Our HQ will be in the cloud”: What if remote-first work is an opportunity, not a compromise?

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 08:15 AM PDT

When it comes to the future of remote work, everyone and their landlord has weighed in. Owners of prime office buildings have dismissed remote work as “serviceable at best” (SL Green Realty’s Marc Holliday), having a “shelf life” (Rudin Management’s Bill Rudin) or “not sustainable” (Empire State Realty Trust’s Tony Malkin). Even owners who have acknowledged that more remote work is a reality and that productivity hasn’t plummeted in its wake have framed it as

Miami-Dade searching for more hotels to isolate Covid-19 patients as cases surge

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 07:35 AM PDT

As the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 surges in Florida, Miami-Dade County is on the hunt for empty hotels it can lease to isolate patients. The county has already secured two hotels to house those who need to self-isolate but don’t have anywhere else to go, said Maurice Kemp, deputy mayor of Miami-Dade. It’s looking for additional properties near Covid-19 hotspots. Areas with a high number of cases include Allapattah, Brownsville, Little Havana, Cutler

Macy’s cuts nearly 4K jobs as it reopens hundreds of stores

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 07:00 AM PDT

Macy’s eliminated thousands of jobs this week in another sign of the retail sector’s struggles, as companies work to emerge from the coronavirus lockdowns. The department store chain cut about 3,900 corporate and management jobs, which is expected to save $365 million this year and $630 million a year going forward, according to Bloomberg. The move came as it has also been reopening hundreds of locations across the country. “We know that we will be

WeWork abandons big Manhattan office lease

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 06:15 AM PDT

WeWork is scrapping plans to move into a major Manhattan office it agreed to lease nearly two years ago. The struggling co-working firm was set to move into a 115,000-square-foot spread at Columbia Property Trust’s 149 Madison Avenue in Midtown South this year. Terminating the deal may now cost WeWork millions, Business Insider reported. WeWork had planned to retrofit the office, for which the landlord set aside $15.9 million. As the coronavirus spread, offices across

Shorewood scores $88M construction loan for first Opportunity Zone project

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 05:30 AM PDT

Shorewood Real Estate Group has inked a new mortgage on its Opportunity Zone project in Jamaica, Queens, after closing on an $88 million construction loan. The loan will finance a 320,000-square-foot, mixed-use development at 160-05 Archer Avenue. Shorewood acquired two vacant lots for the development in 2018 for about $19 million at an auction. The property is Shorewood’s first project in an Opportunity Zone, a federal program that awards tax benefits to investors in low-income

The $112M warehouse transaction that wasn’t

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 05:00 AM PDT

After public records led to reports that three industrial spaces in Queens sold for $112 million, the supposed seller says no such transaction took place. “There was no sale,” said Brian Milberg, senior partner at Sitex, a New Jersey private equity firm that buys and sells industrial property. “We’re looking to hold onto this property for years to come.” Instead of selling, Sitex said, it bought out the leases of tenants at 66-31, 66-35 and

TRD Insights: These metro areas are seeing the most CMBS loan distress

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 04:30 AM PDT

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown tens of billions of dollars in commercial-mortgage backed securities debt into special servicing, and even more loans have fallen behind on their monthly payments. The economic impact of shutdowns and social distancing has hit some sectors far more than others, and the geographic distribution of distress has also been uneven, as a new report from Trepp shows. The New York City metropolitan area, an early epicenter of the U.S. outbreak

Rebuilding the construction industry in the age of the coronavirus

Posted: 26 Jun 2020 04:00 AM PDT

When engineering giant AECOM started developing a virtual consultation tool in late 2019, its aim was to allow members of the public to weigh in on projects remotely. The idea, at the time, was that busy schedules prevented some from attending critical public meetings. “It was originally intended for stakeholders who can’t make a physical meeting,” said Kevin Carlson, who leads AECOM’s digital transformation department. “There was no broader thinking” beyond that, he added. But