Bill De Blasio

• December 2023 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: The U.S. Immigration Fund of a 22-acre megaproject that was supposed to deliver more than 3,000 units of housing in Brooklyn is at risk of losing control of several still-unbuilt development sites. to foreclose on six sites owned by Greenland USA. Steve Cohen details his Queens casino plan dba Metropolitan Park would be an 8 billion project near Citi Field and spread over 50 acres of parking lots surrounding Citi Field, home to the Mets. Hard Rock International is partnering with Cohen on the project. Cohen’s plan includes a hotel, music venue, food hall and 20 acres of ...
  
  
• September 2021 New York New Developments
• New Developments New York City has a 10.5% unemployment rate, almost twice the national average. The city has lost around 500,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic that have yet to be replaced. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the vaccine mandate would begin on August 17 and require many indoor businesses to check for proof of vaccination before allowing patrons to enter. At that point, penalties for compliance failure will begin at $1,000 and can rise to $5,000 for repeat offenders. 63% of the city’s population is at least partially vaccinated, with 56% of the population fully vaccinated. ...
  
  
• June 2021 New York New Developments
• New Developments The Gateway tunnel is back on track. Federal officials completed their environmental review of the $11.6 billion rail tunnel, giving the project the green light. The move comes after years of delays from the Trump administration. The plan calls for building a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River, which would connect New Jersey’s Bergen Palisades to New York’s Penn Station. The approval could potentially advance real estate acquisitions and other pre-construction activities. State lawmakers are seeking to give New York City more control over Cuomo’s Penn Station expansion and new development in the surrounding area. A recently ...
  
  
• October 2020 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments Vacant office and retail space will have a domino effect on the city’s budget and economy. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $12 billion budget deficit by 2021. The low office numbers have also led to a projected $9 billion drop in sales tax and other revenues. About 24,000 New Yorkers have lost their lives to the coronavirus. The unemployment rate is 16% and just 10% of workers have returned to the office by September. Personal income tax revenue may drop by $2 billion this fiscal year. Only a third of hotel rooms are occupied, and ...
  
  
• August 2020 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments 476 new building permits were filed in the three-month period from April through June, spanning 9,309 multi-family units. Nearly half of the footage is residential, just over one-third is commercial, and the rest is split between education and utilities. Amazon said it would increase its fulfillment center square footage by 50% in 2020, that is on top of the 15% increase it reported in 2019. NYC Health + Hospitals’ six administrative offices were consolidated at 50 Water Street and resulted in $200 million in cost savings . HHC signed a 25-year lease for 526,552 square feet. ...
  
  
• July 2020 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments WeWork is considering ditching its co-living business and is working with an adviser on options to hand over operations of its two communal living locations in New York City and outside Washington, D.C. Topshop shuttered its 608 Fifth Avenue store and Vornado Realty Trust has turned over control of the property at 608 Fifth Avenue to the Korein family, which owns the ground under the building. City Council members are fighting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposed cuts to the city’s capital budget, saying it will mean a loss of 21,000 affordable apartments over the next few ...
  
  
• June 2020 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a package of Covid-19 relief bills, including one that temporarily bars landlords from going after restaurants and store owners’ personal assets. Attempting to enforce such provisions constitutes harassment under the measure. New York state’s coronavirus foreclosure ban does not apply to mezzanine loans. The last observation deck at the Chrysler Building closed in 1945 and will now be getting a new one. RFR Realty received unanimous approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission for the new deck on the terraces that frame the 61st floor of the 77-floor tower. They ...
  
  
• May 2020 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Manhattan Office Office Leasing in April was near zero with brokers unable to show, so the only deal done were started long ago. March was dead quiet and all showings stopped in Mid March. February leaving numbers showed a 41% drop in month-over-month leasing volume compared to January, across all three Manhattan sub-markets. Leasing volume for the quarter totaled 6.82 million square feet, the fewest since the third quarter of 2013. Office leasing in Manhattan ended the first quarter of 2020 on a low note, with the coronavirus pandemic putting a damper on all types of economic activity. Manhattan Retail: ...
  
  
• May 2020 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments The number of new building filings in January and February dropped 28% and 23%, respectively, from a year ago. RFR Realty abandoned a deal to buy 900 Third Avenue for $400 million and a retail condo at 1600 Broadway in Times Square for more than $200 million. Extell’s controversial East Harlem development site is destined to become a low-rise office building. The developer began his assemblage in 2014 by purchasing the East 124th Street parcel for $39 million. The Empire State Development agency said real estate services must be conducted remotely for all transactions, “including but ...
  
  
• April 2020 New York New Developments
• New York New Developments Gov. Andrew Cuomo barred all employees of non-essential businesses from reporting to work, and laid out what amounts to shelter-in-place rules for New Yorkers, though he avoided the phrase. The order exempts food businesses and others deemed essential. After saying he will halt all residential and commercial evictions for 90 days, Cuomo noted that landlords would have a hard time renting out vacant apartments anyway, and real estate agents can’t show apartments under the new workforce rules. About $20 billion in retail property loans are coming due, and it’s unclear how much of that debt will ...
  
  
• February 2020 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Amazon leased a warehouse in Staten Island containing 450,000 square feet next to the 855,000-square-foot distribution center in 2017. The new warehouse will focus on last-mile deliveries. Gulliver’s Gate, the miniature-landscapes attraction finally closed its location at 229 West 43rd Street. The two-and-a-half year old company filed for bankruptcy with a plan to restructure its business, which reportedly struggled under the weight of its $5.7 million annual rent. Uncommon Schools signed a deal to take around 42,000 square feet at Rudin Management’s 55 Broad Street. The 15-year lease covers the second and third floors at the 30-story tower. ...
  
  
• May 2018 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: 666 Fifth Avenue announced that the tower lost $25 million in 2017, largely due to the debt service on the property outweighing its net income. Chinese developer Zhonghong Holdings has defaulted on more than $174 million debt, just one year after the company tried to buy a senior living facility chain. Brookdale Senior Living for $4 billion. Co-working companies have stepped up their game in New York City, increasingly competing with traditional commercial landlords for the same tenants. Sixteen co-working companies have leased 664,000 square feet in the city so far in 2018. Brookfield Property Partners ...
  
  
• December 2017 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: Retailers south of 96th Street that pay more than $250,000 per year in rent also pay a tax on that rent. A new bill would raise the threshold to $500,000, meaning about 2,000 business would escape the tax. London-based rhubarb, a major hospitality company in England, plans to open new restaurants at 30 Hudson Yards and at the Hudson Yards Shops & Restaurants. The restaurant at the mall will contain 5,800 square feet on the fifth floor. At 30 Hudson Yards, rhubarb plans to open a 10,000-square-foot restaurant on the 92nd floor. Soho Properties, in partnership ...
  
  
• November 2017 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: New construction starts for nonresidential projects tripled to more than $3 billion due largely to massive undertakings at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and the Moynihan Train Hall. The total dollar volume for nonresidential construction starts in New York City jumped to $3.66 billion, a 203% increase from $1.21 billion a year earlier. Most of the private air rights along the High Line are used. New York City is seeking to sell its own air rights to West Chelsea property owners for $500 per square foot. The Department of City Planning proposed a rule change ...
  
  
• August 2017 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: Starwood Mortgage Capital provided a $105 million loan for Aurora Capital Associates and William Gottlieb Real Estate’s Restoration Hardware project in the Meatpacking District. The 10-year loan retires a $60 million loan from Wells Fargo. Aurora and Gottlieb are building a 60,000-square-foot retail project at 9-19 Ninth Avenue, where Restoration Hardware signed a 15-year lease worth $250 million. Northern Manhattan’s commercial real estate market was sluggish. A total of 138 properties sold in 154 deals for a total dollar volume of $694 million uptown, down 64% year-over-year. The average price per buildable square foot at development ...
  
  
• March 2017 New York New Developments
• New York Major Developments: The city is taking another attempt at rezoning the Garment District, a move that will likely rollback rules that require landlords to lease a portion of their building to the fashion industry. The possible rezoning is connected to the Mayor’s plans to build a new manufacturing campus in Brooklyn. The Bloomberg administration tried to rezone the Garment District in 2009, but stopped the plan due to opposition. In the fourth quarter of 2016, absorption rate was negative in all three Manhattan office submarkets: Downtown, Midtown, and Midtown South for a total net absorption of negative 277,988 ...
  
  
• February 2017 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: Jared Kushner sold his equity stake in 666 Fifth Avenue though the identity of the buyer and what they paid for remains unknown. Kushner paid $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007, he then sold off a major stake in the retail portion to Carlyle Group and Crown Acquisitions for $525 million. The Chinese Investment in foreign property increased by more than half last year. The U.S. received the bulk of those investments, totaling $14.3 billion. New York University signed a lease for 58,000 square feet at 180 Madison Avenue, and has committed to taking another 41,000 ...
  
  
• September 2016 New York New Developments
• Major Developments: SL Green Realty says it has shaken a pesky lawsuit that threatened to stall the construction of its office building near Grand Central Terminal, One Vanderbilt. The REIT has settled a lawsuit filed by the owner of Grand Central, which alleged that the office landlord and the city rendered his 1.2 million square feet of air rights useless when it rezoned the area. The settlement was made possible, in part, by the recent sale of a stake in Grand Central to Michael Dell’s MSD Capital. In 2012, the Witkoff Group announced it would build a new hotel at ...
  
  
• February 2015 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Manhattan's East Side office submarket had lower asking rents, while prices in Hudson Square rose dramatically after the rezoning. New office leases rose to 63% from 55% year from the previous year to year based on square footage leased.Mayor Bill de Blasio is seeking to raise taxes on virtual retailers that do business in New York but have no physical presence in the city.A continued surge in TAMI technology, advertising and media sector coupled with modest growth in the financial sector resulted in large amount of leasing and demand at its highest in nine years. The Manhattan commercial investment sales ...
  
  
• December 2014 NYC Buildings purchased & For to purchase
• New York Buildings sold The developer who is turning Verizon's former downtown headquarters into luxury condominiums has bought the building's 40,000-square-foot retail space for $40 million.A Developer acquired a three-story Upper West Side commercial building located at 2307 Broadway for $25.9 million. The 9,900-square-foot property, between West 83rd and 84th streets, is home to a Duane Reade store on the ground floor. There are offices on the upper floors.A Financial services firm acquired a 16-story office building at 21 Penn Plaza in Midtown from Savanna and the Feil Organization for an undisclosed price.A Canadian property investor and Chicago-based Callahan Capital ...
  
  
• May 2014 New York New Developments
• Major Developments Duane Reade recently vacated a location next to department store H&M; and is now on the market. The unofficial asking rent for the property is nearly $8 million per year. Commune Hotels & Resorts, a San Francisco-based joint partnership between Thompson Hotels and Joie De Vivre Hotels, has plans to develop two more hotels in Manhattan. One will operate under the Thompson Hotel brand, while the other will have a different hotel brand. The properties, for which Commune has already inked deals, are looking to open in 2016. The lineup for Westfield Group’s central shopping hall within the ...
  
  
• April 2014 New York New Developments
• New Developments The planned performing-arts center at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan has stiff competition for funds. The $469 million dollar project now sits in limbo while the new Mayor, Bill de Blasio, comes to a decision about the future of the planned center.The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey board of commissioners are fighting over subsidies for 3 World Trade Center, the 80-story, $2.3 billion tower in the Financial District. The project is currently stalled. Developer Larry Silverstein and Port Authority’s Vice Chair are pushing for the subsidies that they said would allow for construction ...
  
  
• March 2014 New York New Developments
• New Developments 68 Charlton Street Extell Development has submitted plans for a 22-story residential building in Hudson Square that would include the neighborhood its first affordable housing.Flushing Commons. Architect Perkins Eastman announced the master plan. Phase one will have 150 residential units and 220,000 square feet of office space, along with 1,600 parking spaces. Phase two will have 450 residential units and 280,000 square feet of commercial space, a 62,000-square-foot YMCA and an additional 15,000 square feet for community facilities. There will also be A 1.5-acre town square, built around a central fountain plaza.Phase one is aiming for an April ...
  
  
• February 2014 New York New Developments
• New Developments A Brooklyn fashion networking company away is moving into Manhattan. Manufacture NYC, a program that gives budding designers access to industrial sewing machines and design software, conducted an exhaustive search for a budget-friendly spot in Brooklyn before finally giving up and settling on a space in Manhattan’s Garment District. 7-Eleven is trying to gain acceptance in Manhattan. Since entering Manhattan in 2011 the number of locations has quadrupled from eight to 37 stores.Hospitals are increasingly opening full-service walk-in clinics in an effort to reduce inpatient costs. As a result, outpatient medical facilities are cropping up throughout the city. ...
  
  
• April 2011 New York New Developments
• Major Trends Bruce Ratner wants to construct the world's tallest prefabricated structure at the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn, according to the New York Times. The 34-story proposed tower would include 400 affordable apartment units, fulfilling a promise Ratner made when he took over the site. The annual rate of building permits issued for new privately-owned U.S. housing units fell by another 8.2 percent in February to a record-low 517,000, according to the latest data from the Commerce Department, backing up analysts' predictions that a sustained recovery in the housing market is still elusive. The permitting rate, which is indicative ...
  
  
• April 2011 New York Commercial Real Estate Market Report
• Manhattan's office leasing market is on pace for its best year ever after February brought some 3 million square feet worth of deals,. That's far above the nine-year monthly average of 1.9 million square feet of office leases. The banner month also comes on the heels of a busy January, when 2.6 million square feet were snapped up in Manhattan office lease transactionsManhattan townhouses see 2010 sales uptickBoth the single-family and multi-family Manhattan townhouse markets showed signs of improvement last year, according to the Corcoran Group, which released its first annual Townhouse Report today. In the single-family market, the number ...