The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Maison Kayser may bid New York adieu

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 05:03 PM PDT

Maison Kayser’s last tweet, dated June 15, says the French bakery chain is “woven into the fabric of diverse communities around the world.” But the threads have come loose in New York City, where its 16 locations have been closed since March. And now the business may be unwinding its presence here, Commercial Observer reported. One of its landlords, in talks with the chain about getting out of its space, told the publication that Maison

Vishaan Chakrabarti on a Manhattan real estate market without private cars

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 02:30 PM PDT

Vishaan Chakrabarti has a message for real estate developers: Think outside your own black car. The founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism and the dean of the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design joined TRD‘s Hiten Samtani to discuss his proposal for a Manhattan in which private cars would be banned. Instead, all the land devoted to the private car — four Central Parks worth, by his estimate — could be used for better

Tourist hot spot serves landlord a $72K bill

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 12:53 PM PDT

In late July, Sterling Landlord Corp posted a notice on the front door of Ellen’s Stardust Diner, a Times Square tourist destination known for its singing waiters. The message was bleak: Ellen’s owed $618,000 in rent and if it did not pay by Aug. 7, the location at 1650 Broadway would be shut down. But Ellen’s had no plans to pay. Instead, it sued its landlord in New York’s Supreme Court Thursday, disputing the debt

Minskoff sells first condo in West Village project for $22M

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 12:30 PM PDT

Edward J. Minskoff Equities’ boutique condominium in the West Village has its first buyer. An unknown limited liability company, DOC BABE, bought a duplex unit at the property this week for $21.9 million, according to property records. The buyer went into contract on the home in September 2019. The condo is the smaller of two townhouse units that occupy the first and second floors of the six-story condominium at 17 Jane Street that Minskoff converted

Columbia Property Trust sees leasing, revenue rise while buildings just 5% full

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 11:45 AM PDT

Looking at the latest quarterly financials from Columbia Property Trust, you might forget that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. The office REIT leased more square footage than it did in the same period a year ago, and recorded its highest normalized funds from operation since 2018. But the situation on the ground tells a different story. The company’s properties still stand mostly empty — which has helped reduce operational costs somewhat — and

New York extends rent-relief window one week

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 11:32 AM PDT

Tenants are getting an extra week to apply for pandemic rent relief. Homes and Community Renewal, the state agency that administers the rent-relief program, announced it would accept applications until Aug. 6. Initially, the agency planned on a two-week window beginning July 16. The response on that first day was so great that it briefly crashed the website to apply. Instructions for the program are available in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Haitian-Creole, Korean and Bengali, according

TRD Insights: Google isn’t coming back to the office until at least next summer. Here’s all the space at stake

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 09:30 AM PDT

In December 2018, Google CFO Ruth Porat announced plans for the search giant’s new 1.7 million-square-foot campus in Manhattan’s Hudson Square, a move that would allow the company to “more than double the number of Googlers in New York over the next 10 years.” It was the latest in a series of billion-dollar moves that had made Google one of the most consequential office tenants in core U.S. office markets, with a large presence in

IBM narrows search for big Manhattan office

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 08:45 AM PDT

Much has changed since last fall, when IBM was looking for a sizable new office in Manhattan. One thing that hasn’t is that IBM is still pursuing it, even as the pandemic and work-from-home has raised doubt about the future of offices in urban centers. In fact, the blue-chip giant has narrowed its search down to about six buildings — including SL Green’s One Madison Avenue — and has hired Cushman & Wakefield to find

Astoria waterfront project nabs $280M financing package

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 08:00 AM PDT

A joint venture has nabbed $280 million in debt and equity to develop a mixed-income rental property on Astoria’s waterfront. Cape Advisors and The Pioneer Group secured a $225 million construction loan from Square Mile Capital Management, Commercial Observer reported. The loan will have full-term interest-only payments. Denver-based real estate investment trust UDR provided the equity. Meridian Capital Group advised on the debt, and JLL on the equity. The development at 30-77 Vernon Boulevard will

SL Green shopping Amazon-anchored office in Hudson Yards

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 07:30 AM PDT

SL Green Realty, which has been bulking up its coronavirus cushion, is looking to sell an office property in the Hudson Yards area for $1.1 billion. The office landlord is marketing 410 Tenth Avenue, which is anchored by Amazon, Business Insider reported. SL Green acquired a majority interest in the 640,000-square-foot building in 2018, valuing the property at about $440 million. SL Green then leased over half of the building’s space to Amazon. Analysts say

“Headwind to profitability”: Amazon doubles down on fulfillment centers

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 07:06 AM PDT

Amazon has been on a torrid pace of leasing and acquiring millions of square feet of fulfillment centers and warehouses across the country this year. And demand is there. The company, which reported $88.9 billion in second quarter sales Thursday, said it would increase its fulfillment center square footage by 50 percent in 2020. That’s on top of the 15 percent increase it reported in 2019. The Jeff Bezos-led behemoth benefited from an April through

Starwood eyes $11B raise for real estate, distressed bets

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 06:19 AM PDT

Barry Sternlicht is putting his money where his mouth is. The Starwood Capital Group CEO last month quipped, “when it’s really ugly, it’s a good time to invest.” Now, the company is looking to raise $11 billion for real estate and distressed bets. The firm’s Starwood Global Opportunity Fund XII is looking to raise $8 billion for real estate acquisitions, and a sidecar fund will raise $3 billion for distressed opportunities, Bloomberg reported. Starwood, partly

Porch.com to go public in $523M blank-check deal

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 05:45 AM PDT

Porch.com, a VC-backed home services marketplace, is going public with a blank-check company, one of the first such deals in the proptech world. The Seattle-based firm said Friday it entered a definitive agreement to merge with PropTech Acquisition Corp., a Los Angeles-based special acquisition company, or SPAC, formed last year by Abu Dhabi Investment Authority veterans Thomas Hennessey and Joseph Beck. The deal values Porch.com at $523 million. Upon closing, PropTech will be renamed Porch

Calamity and Kabbage: Accountants riff on PPP madness

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 05:00 AM PDT

Wrapping their arms around the Paycheck Protection Program has been a mind-boggling experience for Mark Bosswick and Elliot Levine, two veterans of New York City’s accounting industry. With hundreds of billions of dollars up for grabs from Congress, rapid-fire rule changes from Washington and bewildering responses from the banking system, the accountants and their colleagues have been trying to make sense of it all for clients. Appearing Wednesday on The Real Deal’s webinar series TRD

Here’s where Covid hit Manhattan condo market hardest

Posted: 31 Jul 2020 04:00 AM PDT

At first glance, Manhattan’s condo market seems to have emerged unscathed from the pandemic. The borough’s median condo sales price in April, May and June actually increased by 3.4 percent to $1.6 million from the first quarter of the year, according to an analysis by The Real Deal of sales data from listings platform Online Residential. Though that’s down 18 percent from the same quarter a year ago, it’s not as steep a drop as