The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Lonicera Partners is bringing yet another apartment tower to Downtown Brooklyn. The developer filed permits for a 290-unit, mixed-use building at 55 Willoughby Street. At 38 stories, the tower will climb high above its immediate neighbors, more closely resembling nearby skyscrapers like the Brooklyner Apartments and One MetroTech Center. The filings call for 223,000 square feet of residential space and 4,500 square feet for commercial use. Colberg Architecture, which previously worked with Lonicera on the

Morgan Stanley is keeping its faith in New York City’s office culture in the new year, agreeing to one of the city’s biggest leases since the onset of the pandemic. The investment bank is poised to take over roughly 400,000 square feet at 55 East 52nd Street, also known as Park Avenue Plaza, Bloomberg reported. The 15-year lease will replace BlackRock’s headquarters as that firm moves to Hudson Yards next year. Morgan Stanley’s presence in

Tishman Speyer is planning to build 620 apartments on land in Santa Monica it recently purchased for $150 million from Neil Shekhter’s WSC Communities. The New York-based commercial giant is planning to build eight properties across 3.1 acres in Downtown Santa Monica, according to an announcement on Monday. The Real Deal reported when the deal went into hard contract last month, but details were previously unknown. The project marks Tishman Speyer’s first foray into Los

UPDATED Jan. 4, 2022, 4:24 p.m.: Prologis purchased a Maspeth industrial property for nearly $50 million — the logistics giant’s latest acquisition in the Queens neighborhood. The REIT paid $48 million to buy a 4-acre assemblage on 47th Street, a source familiar with the sale told The Real Deal. The four parcels include warehouses and large open spaces for parking. “Maspeth has witnessed a flurry of capital investment over the past several years as major

It was a scene reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”  When a group of carolers stood outside landlord Steve Croman’s Upper East Side mansion last month, they were bringing anything but holiday cheer.  Instead, members of the Stop Croman Coalition, a tenant group formed in 2007 to hold the infamous landlord accountable, set their feelings about him to music. As reporter Suzannah Cavanaugh writes, the singers performed a colorful rewrite of “You’re a Mean

New owners have arrived in a swank Houston neighborhood, and they’re throwing around some cash. Thor Equities sold a high-end development in Houston’s Upper Kirby district to Fowler Property Acquisitions for $182M in October, the Houston Chronicle reported. The San-Francisco-based buyer changed the name of the property at 3200 Kirby Drive from Kirby Collection to Arrive Kirby. New York-based Thor Equities developed the property, completing it in 2017. Its elliptical, 25-story residential tower has 199

Meeting the demand for affordable housing is already an impossible task for the head of New York City’s housing agency. Making matters worse for Louise Carroll, most of her tenure was hamstrung by the pandemic. Carroll was named commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in May 2019. Ten months later, the city shut down. Weeks earlier, Carroll had pushed her team to craft a plan to work remotely, a decision that gave the

It may be a new year, but one of the largest-ever industrial purchases indicates the sector’s hot streak isn’t fading just yet. CBRE Investment Management recently agreed to buy a portfolio of logistics properties from Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Investment Properties, according to the Wall Street Journal. The properties involved in the deal are valued at $4.9 billion. The portfolio spans more than 28 million square feet and includes warehouses and distribution centers, as well

UPDATED, Jan. 4, 5 p.m. ET: Serhant is bringing the Upper West Side a new Era — or rather, The Westly. Ryan Serhant’s eponymous brokerage will take over sales at the distinct cantilevered building formerly known as Era at 251 West 91st Street, Serhant announced Tuesday. Developers Adam America Real Estate and Northlink Capital launched sales while the 20-story building was still under construction in June 2021. Under Serhant, the building will now be known

The summit of real estate used to be the domain of the “cowboys” — the Harry Helmsleys, Bill Zeckendorfs and Harry Macklowes, buccaneers who mastered the art of relationship-building and taking outsized risks. The industry then came to be dominated by the “suits,” structured-finance whizzes such as Jon Gray and Marc Holliday who brought a Wall Street ethos to the business. The next shift is to the “technologists,” according to The Real Deal‘s Hiten Samtani.

Two years after a spectacular rise and fall, WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann’s latest venture is reportedly beginning to take shape. Entities tied to Neumann have purchased majority stakes in more than 4,000 apartments across the United States, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing records and people familiar with the transaction. The holdings, largely located in Sun Belt cities like Atlanta and Nashville, are valued at more than $1 billion. Many of the apartment transactions occurred

A lot can change in a year. In the spring of 2020, after the coronavirus had shuttered the U.S. economy and wrecked confidence in many commercial real estate markets, the proptech venture capital firm MetaProp made a daring prediction: The ballooning crisis would not derail or even stall proptech investment, innovation and deal flow — it would supercharge it. “While the shape of this market shock has shifted some near-term fortunes, more than anything it

It’s been a wild ride for Brooklyn landlord Chaskiel Strulovitch. The beleaguered landlord put his 31-unit rental portfolio into Chapter 11 two years ago in Westchester County to thwart foreclosure by hardball lender Maverick Real Estate Partners. Strulovitch and his partners were also accused by investors of defrauding them “in the style of Bernie Madoff.” Strulovitch’s legal team denied the allegations. Now Strulovitch has secured exit financing to take a majority of his portfolio out

Retailers in Brooklyn signed massive leases this year, going above and beyond last year’s numbers. Retailers committed to some major square footage, notching three top deals surpassing last year’s biggest lease of just 62,000 square feet. But the type of retailer that made the list varied. Some were traditional, like Target, but gyms, sports clubs, parking facilities and even a charter school also made the top ten. Brokers say the pandemic remained a factor this

Welcome to a new year and another new issue of The Real Deal. This January, we look back at what 2021 meant for real estate, and preview some of the new challenges, disruptions and opportunities in store for the industry in the year ahead. This month’s features include: Empty promises in Silicon Valley: Two years after Apple, Google, and Meta pledged $4.5 billion to help address an affordable housing deficit by building 40,000 new homes

From one investment firm’s ashes, a new landlord has risen with a bullish outlook on New York multifamily and hospitality. Shai Shamir, formerly the CEO of Brack Capital Real Estate, launched 6R Capital Realty in November with partner Oz Levi as Brack Capital was winding down operations in the U.S. Shamir said the New York arm of the global firm shut down in 2021. Last month, as Brack Capital was closing on the sale of